Trapdoor Springfield

[Ibmikey]

I have a trapdoor Carbine and normally shoot a light bullet with 11 grains of Unique powder, very light load and using a taller blade in the front sight lug she shoots close to center. At 100 yds. Not a lot of power but makes the steel ring at that distance and little kick for the shooter.

[kraigwy]

I use to use Unique for cast bullets in rifles, but went to other powders instead as I found they take up more room in the case.

For example, Using 11 gr of unique in my 45-70 case it fills the case 33.8 percent. Using 4198 it fills up 61.7 percent.

With the lower fill, the powder isnt as consistant in laying in the case while firing therefore you accuracy suffers.

I like to find the power that comes closest to filling the case, and burns 100% just as the bullet exits the barrel.

5477 is another excellent powder for cast bullets or reduced loads. As is Trailboss.

I think one should try as many powders as possible to see which is the most accurate.

[briandg]

Col Townsend whelen is quoted saying that "only accurate rifles are interesting".

Bull.

Most of the rifles that I would have on a bucket list couldn't bench press over 50 pounds.

I should have bought a trapdoor when hr was selling them almost fifty years ago.

[44 AMP]

Whelen also said "the only reason the whitetail population still exists is the buckhorn rear sight"

Don't just look at select quotes, read some of what he wrote, he was a hugely opinionated son of a gun. To be fair, all the old "gun cranks" were, it was the style of the times, as much as the individuals, though some carried it to what are today, considered extremes.

[briandg]

I've read a lot about him, as well as Howe, his working partner.

It was applicable. Interesting guns are interesting, imo, unlimited accuracy guns are only mildly interesting. Pillar bedding, blueprint actions, it all rates somewhere near near the intricacies of creating a French horn. Seeing the .700 t rex was like seeing a vintage Ferrari.

[kraigwy]

all the old "gun cranks" were, it was the style of the times

And we can learn a lot studying those old Gun Cranks.

Read up on Bass Reeves, his cross draw and learning to shoot with Right and Left and equally saved his life many time in his duties as a Dep. US Marshall in the Indian Territories of Oklahoma. Probably the most experienced non-fiction Western Lawmen.

Look at Cpt Edward Lewis on rifle shooting, Dr. Francis Mann search for the one hole group. Hatcher as an Ordinance officer was building the lead for spin drift into the sights of our service rifles before it was cool.

We talk about our modern day snipers, Hathcock, Kyle, etc, yet they dont compare to the likes of Jack Hinson from our civil war.

I had a cousin who's father in law worked with the old gunmen law officers of the 30s in Oklahoma. He made trip to Anchorage and wanted meet me. I just got to work and was about to hit the street when he showed up at the station. I delayed in getting to my area and when to have coffee with the old gentlemen. Four hours later my Lieutenant came looking for me. He set down for about 15 minutes, got up, told me to take all the time I needed as he would get more out of me from what I learned from this guy they he could by me working my patrol area.

He was right, I learned more that night from this old Gun Crank (about coaching and instructing) then I have from any instructor at any of the many classes I have attended. Only Gary Anderson (another Old Gun Crank) came close.

Every ex cop/service member is a gun expert now. Sorry, I'll stick with my Old Crank buddies.

[SIGSHR]

Buckhorn sight-or lack of practice ? I am not a hunter nor do I play one on the Internet, from what I have read over the years most hunters really do not shoot enough and hence aren't good shots.
The old time writers and experimenters pretty much worked in isolation, rarely met each other, at best corresponded.
And a lot of us today are pretty opinionated. Cf the caliber wars or "---
-- are junk!" threads.
The manual of arms for the Trapdoor is fairly simple, the Buffington sight allows for careful sight adjustments. I am not sure what the ammunition allotments were for practice back then, from what I have read they were none too generous.

[kraigwy]

I am not sure what the ammunition allotments were for practice back then, from what I have read they were none too generous

The Springfield Trapdoors carried over from the muzzle loader service rifles, in that they came with a mold and reloading equipment.

Like today, if the soldiers of that era didnt shoot, it was because they wouldn't put in the time to shoot on their own.

[dahermit]

Like today, if the soldiers of that era didnt shoot, it was because they wouldn't put in the time to shoot on their own.

Out of curiosity, what was a trooper's monthly pay, back in those days?

[kraigwy]

About $12 per month, which is in line with a privates pay today.

The means was there, its the lack of desire that was missing then and now.

[SIGSHR]

In my day (1967-1971), no such thing as a soldier signing out his weapon on his own to go practice. No range on base at Anderson Kaserne during my year in Germany 1970-1971. The army I served in was not anti-gun but it certainly ungun.

[Mike Irwin]

"The Springfield Trapdoors carried over from the muzzle loader service rifles, in that they came with a mold and reloading equipment.

Like today, if the soldiers of that era didnt shoot, it was because they wouldn't put in the time to shoot on their own."


For most of the post Civil War period up to the 1890s or so, training allocation was TWENTY rounds a year.

And no, troops weren't encouraged to practice on their own. Ammunition was a precious commodity in the post CW era given that military budgets were cut into the bone and stayed that way until the Spanish-American War.

As for reloading the spent casings, remember, for the first 12 to 15 or so years of the Trapdoor era, arsenal .50-70, .45-70, and .45 revolver ammunition was NOT reloadable because it was internally primed centerfire.

So it didn't matter one whit if the troops had bullet molds. They didn't have reloadable cases.

After modern centerfire ammunition was introduced, the military came up with the cost savings idea of collecting cases fired in training and shipping them back to Frankford Arsenal to be reloaded into more training ammunition.


As for "Army provided reloading kits..."

No. They were NOT general issue, and as far as I know, fewer than a dozen were manufactured at Frankford, and today supposedly only two are know to exist.

They were investigated as a way of giving isolated outposts an option for reloading ammunition in case they were lacking supplies, but were never issued.




So, sorry, but troops were not encouraged to hone their shooting skills on their own time.

[Mike Irwin]

"Only Gary Anderson (another Old Gun Crank) came close."

In my dealings with him I always found him to be just cranky.

[kraigwy]

"Only Gary Anderson (another Old Gun Crank) came close."

In my dealings with him I always found him to be just cranky.

Odd, I always find him friendly and helpful.

But I guess coaching does make one "cranky" at times.

[briandg]

Okay, it's always been "common knowledge" that bison hunters, using those large charges would carry a convenient number of round, a ton of bp, caps,and some extra bullets and a mold. Maybe a few small ingots of lead. As far as possible, they would recover the fired bullets when skinning or butchering for food, and recast when convenient. They would reload the fired rounds after the shooting stopped

Loaded rounds cost money and were inconvenient to pack. Powder and recycled lead were an obvious solution.

Is this true?

[Andrewsky]

Not to change the subject, but similar to the Trapdoor being blamed for the Little Bighorn, the Krag suffered much worse from the same phenomenon in the Spanish-American War.

"We had a lot of casualties because we couldn't reload our rifle with stripper clips and the enemy could...it's not that we used bad tactics or anything like that."

[Rob228]

Every ex cop/service member is a gun expert now. Sorry, I'll stick with my Old Crank buddies.

I'm coming up on 17 years in the Corps and I can't agree more. The military does some things right, and we do a decent job teaching marksmanship, but if you take a step outside of the basics, 98% of my coworkers have zero clue what they are talking about.

[briandg]

Forty years of shooting, handloading, listening to the cranks, after forty years I knowabsolutely nothing about things that weren't within my interests. Semiautomatic pistols or rifles. Various other things.

Gun rags are useless. It's never straightforward.

while the .30-06 is marginally faster than the . 308 and faster than the .30-30,
The .30-30 is almost the only lever action round available to American, and although many, many bolt rifles are available in other calibers with greater velocities, more deer have been killed with the venerable 30-30 than with its ballistic twin, the .30 Remington. Of course we can't ignore the fact that the .30-30 is quite capable of killing a deer out to and beyond 300+ yards but the similarly sized action .300 WSM HAS a greater range and is in most cases, more accuracy. Of further consideration, however, the highly desirable performance level of the WSM comes at a price, the loaded ammunition is far more costly than the similar .270 Winchester, another highly respected round created by Winchester. The ******is quite obviously an important tool to keep in the box, whatever your hobby is, from shooting squirrels in the Woodlot to defense against angry yaks.

No matter who you are and what you know everyone has holes in their education and many things that just don't follow through.