N-SSA shoot has original Colt destroyed

[mr. no gold]

Your chronology on the CW musket is pretty much spot on. However, some units preferred to use the 1842 percussion smooth bore musket, so not all were taken in to be rifled. Meagher's New York Irish Battalion was one such. They liked the idea of shooting buck shot and balls in a single load. And, they did so with devasting effect.
Most of the older smooth guns that were rifled had extra sights added and some also had patent capper devices installed. Remington Arms did most of this work. Sad that with the Henry, and the Spencer in use at the time, the War Department eschewed them in favor of the primitive single shot musket. In all likelihood the war would have ended much sooner if those arms had been used by the North.
Dick

[nosrettap1958]

But the Henry and Spencer were so horribly underpowered that the Confederate infantry would have sat back at a distance and blasted them using their 58 caliber muzzleloaders. They were good close range weapons and finally proved to be a match for the Confederate cavalry's Colt revolvers but it took a long time for people to accept these new fangled breechloaders over one good muzzleloader.

[mr. no gold]

The Spencer, and to a lesser extent the Henry were regarded as being underpowered for use on the great plains, but many were used with great effect in the Civil War. Some units were armed with them and did a lot of damage to southern troops. Hatcher's Mounted infantry Brigade comes to mind. Their TN engagement using Spencer rifles for the first time in combat resulted in a bounty/reward for Hatcher's capture or death in the south.
Both used cartidges that were sufficient for the type of warfare favored in the east; and the rapidity of fire made up for most deficiencies. In favor of the musket is the fact that the load can be varied to produce long shots as you pointed out.
The Colt revolvers were most useful for very close in fighting and not much good for long range shooting.
The major barrier to the use of the more advanced weapons seems to be one of cost of production. Hence, leaders like Hatcher made a private purchase of Spencers and armed his troops with them. Ditto with the Henry.
Dick

[Bob Roller]

General Winfield Scott said the muzzle loader has been and always will be the arm of the U.S.Army and by golly he meant it..................didn't he?

Bob Roller

[stuart cee dub]

It was Gen Ripley of the ordinance department that was the man most responsible for blocking the adoption of breechloaders, being firmly in the muzzleloading -only camp . Don't need to waste ammo ...3 a minute is pretty good.(see ''Misfire,a History of American Small Arms ''sic) Cost and the added complications ammunition supply also figured into it .

Rifled muskets were those Smoothbores like the '42's returned to the arsenal to be rifled.Rifle muskets were purpose built 3 bands with a lighter barrel made with rifling like the 1855 Springfield rifle musket .The shorter 2bands with the heavier barrels are properly named as rifles.

The colt special model of 1861 as shown is a rifle musket.Colt ever the salesman tried to get the ordinance department to adopt his version as superior to the 61 Springfield.They bought them anyway with his substantial modifications as the Union was desperate for good rifle muskets .Colt already had the tooling anyway,and made an excellent if non regulation product.These colts were originally built as rifle muskets and not as later rifled Smoothbores.

The '61 springfield and it's ilk while accurate well beyond 100 yds drops like a rock making long range shooting problematic .This was well known at the time.

While not a problem at a current sanctioned shooting match where the distances are known , your sights are all filed to suit ,and the trigger pull is just about 4 1/2 lbs,
range estimation was not taught at the time in the US at the time of the Civil War.

Historically most shooting at the time seldom commenced at much more 125 yards (see ''The Rifle- Musket in Combat'' ..dry but interesting reading ,gives numerous examples based on first hand accounts)
This runs counter to accepted history/conventional wisdom you see on the History Channel where the rifle-musket extended the deadly space out to several hundreds of yards making Napoleonic tactics obsolete.
Most shooting started at ranges Wellington would have be comfortable with.
Paddy Griffiths ''Battle Tactics of the Civil War " makes good reading along those lines .

I was never much interested in this till I took up shooting muskets and realized what they could and could not do .Luckily I was never so inattentive as to use smokeless in either a replica or an original ever .From earlier comments I understand how it happened ,good to know .
  

[Daryl]

Thanks guys - gotta love the history stuff.
The book :firearms of the American West 1803 - 1865 and 1866 - 1894 are treasures. I really enjoyed reading them several times and refer to them when needed.  There may be some minor mistakes, but what makes these books GREAT, is the photos, and the re-printed letters, orders, all of it reprinted from records kept by gun shops and gun-smiths and the war department. They are tremendous reading.

[John A. Stein]

Not all of the 1842s were converted--I owned two of them. Now my son Joe has one of them. John Stein

[Daryl]

There was a picture taken 'after the civil war, I think, in a Mid Western town.  The soldiers in blue (2 or 3?) all had M1842 Muskets, not rifled muskets.
The 1842 muskets (not rifled) also had rear sights, seems to me, but can't remember if they were simple blade or the more complex sights fitted to the rifles, ie: changed if rifled? Anyone?

[Daryl]

Further to the above note, I found a photo and reference to a musket length gun, the model U.S. M1861 rifle musket with bayonette,(Coutesy National Park Service, Fuller Collection, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park Museum). This gun appears to be a couple inches longer than the .54 by Deringer below it. I was not aware of any .58 smoothbores, and appears to be built in 61- making it originally a rifle, but I am confused as to the rifled musket designation. Was this due to the rifle's length - perhaps being full "musket" length?

Below that rifle's picture, is the photo of a U.S. M1817 .54 Rifle by Henry Deringer, Jr. of Philadelphia in 1826. This rifle had been arsenal converted to percussion from it's original flintlock configuration and was carried by Lt. James I. Barrett, Company A, California Volunteers during the Civil War against the Confederate invasion forces at the battle of Picacho Pass on the Gila Trail (Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History).

[Dphariss]

Which Smokeless?

Dan

[Dphariss]

Some 1842s were rifled in later years and shot a 69 minie. This would explain the sights. Would have to do some reading to confirm but the military guns are not of great interest to me. At least not the Muskets or Rifle Muskets.
Many Rifle Muskets were bored smooth after the war when soldiers took them home and realized how poor the minie was for anything but military use.
One of my Uncles had a Colt Rifle Musket that had been bored to about 20 ga.

Dan

[Dphariss]

One other thought probably irrelevant here but what the heck some people here use other firearms. Smokeless does not like "soft" or incomplete ignition. A percussion ignition system is dangerously "weaK" compared to a modern primer in a cartridge. The broken barrel is a classic example of how smokeless reacts when its not ignited properly. It turns into an HE and breaks parts rather than bending them before they fail. Happens in modern guns more than people think when handloaders reduce loads too far.

Dan