Grand Army of the Republic rifle
I attended an auction and picked up some very nice and unusual pieces. I'm in the process of researching and gathering information, but I thought I'd share one of them with my fellow military antiques enthusiasts.
From the information I've gathered thus far, this rifle was one of the ones purchased from England by the government to arm union troops. After the great unpleasantness, many of the foreign service arms were reworked for parade/re-enactment purposes and given back to the GAR men who had actually carried them. So, for your consideration, a 2 band Enfield which has had the bayonet lug ground off and polished, bored out to smooth bore, and had the barrel and bands tinned. I figured this would generate more interest with my southern neighbours. If any of you fine gentlemen have an idea as to value, I'd appreciate a PM. Enjoy!https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo..._Enfield-1.jpg
Converted to shorgun and "prettified" ?
I apologize if this sounds cynical, but what is the evidence for a GAR connection? In a country proud of its "freedom to bear arms", there is not and never was any regulatory reason to bore out the barrel of an ex-service rifle to turn it into a smoothbore, i.e. effectively converting it into a shotgun. That would be totally irrelevant for parade and/or reenactment purposes. Likewise no reason to remove the bayonet lug in either case.
However, there were 2 situations where this was done to significant numbers of muzzle-loading Enfields.
1) Rifles intended for use by native troops in India were supplied without rifling, or had it removed, in order that the native troops were less effective in the event of a mutiny.
2) Ex-service rifles with clapped-out bores were reamed out and used privately as shotguns. In this case, the bayonet lug would often be removed as being unnecessary hindrance
I therefore, with the very greatest respect, suggest that your Enfield fits one of the above categories, most likely 2), both of which are plentiful over here in Mauserland, indeed much more common than "un-Bubbaed" examples, and that Bubba has, to use a quaint old English expression, "tarted it up".
Sorry if this hurts, but could it be that you bought the story?
I would be happy to be proved wrong.
Patrick
P.S: Original Enfields always have an excellent match of the "snail" boss to the curve of the lockplate. In this case, the noticeable mismatch indicates that the barrel is not original to the rifle. It could well be that the original barrel was ruined and that Bubba put in a barrel from somewhere, maybe from a beaten-up "shotgunified" example. The lock seems to be excellent, the barrel definitely less so.