New here and just received a new to me Carbine. Was hoping to get and SRS check? SN240855.
Thanks!
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New here and just received a new to me Carbine. Was hoping to get and SRS check? SN240855.
Thanks!
I have no hit in SRS#1. Love to see some pics however...Quote:
Originally Posted by 504PIR
Jim, thanks for looking. I will try to do some pictures over the weekend.
Others here have more advanced copies of SRS and may find something. They'll be along. Looking forward to seeing it.
None of the SRS books have any information for your serial number. All 240xxx numbers in the books are listed as rifles. Take a very close look at it as the serial number puts production in 1883 a year that NO carbines were produced. In fact from 1882-1885 no new carbines were produced. A few with stared serial numbers were produced in early 1882. Please do post a complete set of pictures.
That’s unfortunate to hear. I purchased this from what I understood to be a highly respected online source. This was the seller’s description:
This carbine was produced at Springfield in 1883 and at some time later it received a field replacement stock. The carbine has seen a lot of western service since this stock shows sling ring/hook wear. The bore and rifling are excellent. It has the original armory mounted rear M79 sight and the M79 front blade. There is some color case on the underside of the block. The stock has not been sanded, but the metal parts are flush with the stock, indicating lots of use. An excellent shooter!!!!
I need to take pictures and get them posted.
TIA
A few pictures from the original add.
I see nothing from pictures supplied that looks wrong. Just the bug about the serial number range. if the price is right get it.
I think the backsight may have been retrofitted. It seems to be a bit "fresher" than the barrel on which it is mounted. Take a good look at the way it sits on the barrel.
To understand better what worries me: look at the first photo. Between the front of the backsight and the back of the barrel band there are multiple little dings on the barrel. But the backsight is unmarked.
Odd. Very.
The more I study this seller's puff, the less I think of it!
This carbine was produced at Springfield in 1883...Quote:
Originally Posted by 504PIR
- that has already been demonstrated to be implausible on the basis of known records.:thdown:
... and at some time later it received a field replacement stock.
- that is a fanciful way of saying that a barrelled system from somewhere was fitted into an available stock. Whichever way around - not original configuration.:thdown:
...field replacement ...
- For that I see no evidence. Could have been done in anyone's cellar or barn.:thdown:
The carbine has seen a lot of western service since this stock shows sling ring/hook wear.
- Wear- yes. But no way of proving where. Pure speculation to feed a buyer's Western fantasies.:confused:
The bore and rifling are excellent.
- A very positive point.:thup:
It has the original armory mounted rear M79 sight and the M79 front blade.
- The wear pattern makes me sceptical about "original". See previous post.:confused:
There is some color case on the underside of the block.
- Maybe. So what? :confused:
The stock has not been sanded, but the metal parts are flush with the stock, indicating lots of use. :thdown:
Hooey! Wood shrinks with age. Metal does not. One of the most common features on really old guns is a buttplate that stands proud of the stock. Furthermore, steel wears less than wood. Metal flush with wood does NOT indicate lots of use - rather the reverse.:thdown::thdown::thdown:
An excellent shooter!:thup:
- I hope so, because I don't think that it is original.
My conclusion - as always - buy the gun not the story!
... Look at the wood around the lockplate. Note the chips in the wood along the bottom edge and at the rear. A lock (not necessarily the one we see now) was at one time incompetently levered out. This is a common type of damage on guns that have been messed around.
BTW, I think that the dings between the backsight and the barrel band, referred to in a previous post, could have resulted from someone driving off the band with a screwdriver or something "pointy".
- More evidence of incompetent dismantling.
Finally, please note that - apart from the question of the manufacturing date, for which I do not possess the source information,***
- all my comments are based on LOOKING at what I can SEE in the photos. They do not depend on the type of gun.
LOOK at what you can SEE and ignore what the seller wants you to imagine!
***Oops! I must correct myself. Of course, it's in Frasca & Hill (which I have).
Patrick Chadwick,
Private message sent.
Thanks
I have been informed that the text which I described as a seller's puff originated with someone whom one would expect to have known better.
I am not a Trapdoor expert - although I do have one myself, and, of course the definitive work on the trapdoor by Frasca & Hill - "The 45-70 Springfield". Where, on Page 376, Appendix F: Tables and Charts, F-1. Production Data by Fiscal Year, one can read that no carbines were produced from 1882 to 1885, as others have already stated.
But, as I pointed out in my last posts, my comments do not depend on the type of rifle. The fundamental question when evaluating any old rifle is: Do the parts look as if they grew old together?
Many people overlook this, and again and again on the forums I have seen people expounding on "whether this is the correct part for 3:15 in the afternoon of the umpteenth of Octebruary, nineteen hundred and whatever" while failing to see that those parts, as genuine and original as they might be individually, have obviously been put together at a much later date in their existence. That is why I pointedly wrote LOOK at what you SEE. For instance, that may be a genuine lock in a genuine carbine stock, but I cannot believe that they left the factory together.
My opinions are AFAICS - WAHTOIMH
As Far As I Can See - Without Actually Having The Object In My Hands
So I may well be wrong. In that case I would be grateful for corrective evidence.
But until then, I stand by my comments.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but, while that exact number does not show up, 240858 does, as a rifle, ditto for all others - in both directions - for as far as the eye can see.
Those LOOK like Al Frasca's pictures, and SOME of the description sounds LIKE his standard verbiage - yet he would NEVER, EVER pull a phony stunt. Something is not meeting the eye here. Is the gun you received the same one as in the pictures? Also, not mentioned anywhere is the truly awful-looking shoulder gap at the barrel band. It is theoretically POSSIBLE that the arm was repaired at some point with a rifle receiver, but Al would have pointed that out. I don't like it.
The front-sight base appears to have been freshly drilled and the blade pin looks to be an over-size replacement.
It does not look like arsenal work. (Burred & apparent punch mark)
It is just another one of those inconsistencies in fit and finish that Patrick Chadwick has alluded to.
504PIR, the word “Bannerman” comes to mind.
As you may not have heard of this company, a word of explanation is on order. From what I have read, it seems that Bannerman became notorious in the late 19th C. for buying up obsolete/replaced/reject components as scrap from Springfield and then turning them into complete guns which were then sold as being original. This led to Springfield stopping such sales when the fraud was discovered. So “Bannerman” is a generic name for Springfield “bitsas”, although what we see here could have been made by anybody, any time.
Summarizing the content of this thread, there seems little doubt that this is such a “bitsa” made from a cut-down rifle system installed in a very second-hand carbine stock.
I hope it’s a good shooter.
That he did. He was a surplus dealer that knew how to glean a dollar. I have a collection of his catalogues.Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick Chadwick