Musket ID

[WadePatton]

A pal has a musket we'd like to ID.  I do have pics but they won't be online tonight.

Here's what I saw in words: three brass bands with blade sight on front band, 41" bbl (reportedly 12-bore, but i didn't measure), bbl is octagon for just a few inches fwd of breech then round thereafter.  rear sight is notched block on tang. guard is brass. has cleanout.  stock is hollowed at cheekpiece.  there's a hickory rr in place, but of course those are never OEM.

It's much like an 1842 Springfield, but not zacktly.  I didn't "note" a bayonet lug (but didn't look specifically for one) and the lock has the "short point" like a John Bailes by L&R.

  thanks.

[WadePatton]

sorry fer the delay:

some marks here i didn't report.  that's "1430" on the bbl, fuzzy pic whoops.  cock spigot part of tumbler is broken, cock MIA.  i've not seen the internals yet, but do plan to "fix it up" for him-to look at.

bbl is 41" smooth and in the 69-72 neighborhoods as a "gunsmith" told him it was a 12-guage shotgun.  i told him it was a musket because of rear sight.  i could be wrong. i was before.  Yes, i'll measure the bore, the gun is only 10-miles away.

[JCKelly]

That is a German musket brought over here for the Civil War. My first antique gun was such a musket, along with a Belgian .58 rifle-musket. Dad bought them for me from a friend, who had just lost his only son in Our Gov't's Police Action in Korea.

[JCKelly]

Forgot to say - I unloaded this gun when I was 15. Had, as I recall, some tissue wadding & a hunk of metal like a washer loaded in it. Back then I was Immortal so I loaded this old forged-iron-barreled musket with shot & annoyed sparrows, &c with it.
My Potsdam musket is dated 1833 on the top left flat of the barrel, near the breech. It was converted to percussion by the Germans. I do not know if Northern (Pennsylvania, in my case) forces actually used these early in the war, or if the North simply bought them to keep them away from the Confederacy. It does have a rear sight. I guess the Germans, who after all did invent the rifle, felt that even a smoothbored gun should be aimed. Many of these muskets were cut down for shotguns after the war.

[WadePatton]

thanks Mr. Kelly.  will pass along.

[JWBlair]

Both pieces pictured are Prussian Model 1809 muskets converted to percussion.The later Model 1839 muskets didn't have that little "tit" on the lock otherwise looks similiar.The U.S.Ordnance Dept. purchased approximately 100,300 of them in the 1861-62 period classing them as 3rd class weapons for between four and eight dollars each.There are some variations.

Try Lodgewood Manufacturing for repair parts

http://www.lodgewood.com/index.html

or-

http://www.ssfirearms.com/products.asp?cat=96

[WadePatton]

thank you Mr. Blair.

the owner thanks you and Mr. Kelly as well.