Spencer Carbine

[Darryl]

Just picked up a 1865 Spencer made by Burnside. Deal of the year for sure.

This will be fun to make ammo for.

Photos coming.

Dolk

[steelbuttplate]

Is that a rimfire ? big chunka lead comes followed by much smoke.

[Darryl]

Is that a rimfire ? big chunka lead comes followed by much smoke.

Yes, Rim fired. But you change out the bock and it turns into 56-50 center fire. You can make ammo for centerfire 56-50.

Now I have
a 1876 Snider carbine
a 187? Springfield trapdoor carbine
and a 1865 Spencer carbine

The three S's

[Junk Yard Dog]

[Darryl]

Took it down today. Maybe 6 screws are replacement screws. Previous owner(s) must have changed screws maybe because they were buggered up or something. Lot of the parts are not fitted correctly on the carbine. taking my time to do that correctly so it functions and not just "looks" good.

I ran into one problem, it is a very early Spencer. From what I can tell it may have seen some fighting at the end of the civil war. The barrel has been changed. I can tell because the barrel ser# and the receiver ser# don't match. Also, you can unscrew the barrl by hand when the receiver is apart which is a problem. If I tighten it, it times out wrong. The rear sight is slightly cocked to the left. Have to figure out how to time that barrel back up. Will eed to find and expert for that.

The bore of the barrel is perfect inside. I though it had 3 lands but it appears to have 6.

It had a crack in the reaqr stock I glued up and you can't hardly see it now. Also had some magazine problems, but I've got that fixed already.

Not a bad shooter Spencer. Probably of some value collector wise, but I really bought it to fire.

Darryl

[Junk Yard Dog]

Built from extra parts. I have seen this before with Trapdoor Springfield's, somebody gets hold of a stash of parts, receivers and other bits, and puts them together to build a rifle. The hand tight barrel is a classic hallmark of this sort of thing, saw that on a '73 Springfield, the barrel would screw right off the receiver by hand. I started seeing a lot of this when prices on these early cartridge rifles started to seriously climb. All of a sudden it became profitable to build something out of that paperweight receiver that's been sitting around for a hundred years. Receivers are the hard to find part, after that it's a matter of haunting Numrich, Sacro, Old Western Scrounger, Dixie, or similar places for the other bits.

[Darryl]

I think this one is not a lot of parts, but all from one carbine except the barrel. All the parts are certainly from the same carbine. The wear and coloring is too close to not be. I've seen a lot of "parts" rifles and they don't match up in wear or color. This one does. Just someone changed the barrel. I think it might have had a bad bore and the guy who owned it before me decided to "fix" it up. Like I said, some of the screws are new. You see that when someone who knows nothing about antiques decides to replace screws because they are buggered up. That's an idiotic thing to do as it drops the price of the firearm.

I'm really hoping to be able to make this one a shooter. That's what I really wanted anyway, but if I can baby it back correct, then I will try because of it's value as a collectable. Certainly better then having a reproduction in .45 cal.

Darryl

[Junk Yard Dog]

Question is were did the guy find a good condition Spencer barrel that wasn't connected to a receiver on a nice Spencer, and why was it taken off of that rifle.

[Darryl]

Jim, a lot of them were repairs in the field back in the 1865 to 1880. They used multiple carbines to make a good one. That was common especially out West in Indian lands. Now it could have been don later also, who knows. Actually, you can buy used barrels even now. Someon jack ass may have decided to put a diferent barrel on this one for some reaso. Maybe it was shot out or just bad. Any way, the barrel is the only thing I can see that has been changed on this rifle. Other then screws. Sometime people who own this kind of firearm are just so damn stupid that they think they are going to make it "better" and replace things. In reality, they destroy some of the value with every replaced screw they put on.

Now I can spen a small fortune replacing screws with originals, and doing what ever to make this look right, but in the end It's mainly a shooter for me. It will fire just perfectly with what it has already. So it will stay just as it is for now.

$1,000 is not a bad price for it as a collectable or a shooter.

He also had a Colt (Colt made) darringer set in .22 cal. Gold plated with cherry wood handles. Beautiful pieced like new. In a Walnut box with Colt's name on it and linded and all. He only wanted $300 for those but I decided not to go with them because out here you need to transfer those using a 01FFL. Seeing as how he got those from his friend's wife (he died 10 years ago), and he didn't transfer them, it could be a sticky point as they are still in his friends name in CA. Just didn't need the troubles. The Spencer is an antique and no one cares, but I got a signed receipt from him anyway.


First look (his photos, not mine)

Spencer_01.jpg

[Longcolt44]

See if you can get the serial numbers off the Derringers. Colt has a site where you can run the numbers to see if they qualify for C&R or even prior to 1898.

[Darryl]

See if you can get the serial numbers off the Derringers. Colt has a site where you can run the numbers to see if they qualify for C&R or even prior to 1898.

No Chuck, they are brand new derringers and using a modern caliber. 22 long. I have seen these many times and they are always transfered through a 01FFL only. Nothing C&R about them.

[Rongo]

Question is were did the guy find a good condition Spencer barrel that wasn't connected to a receiver on a nice Spencer, and why was it taken off of that rifle.

Just a Guess; Possible new/old stock barrel & six screws added to an early & damaged rifle many, many moons ago when these were cheap & plentiful.

[Junk Yard Dog]

That would have been around 1938, after the war the Cowboy movie craze began to spark interest in the States War and the weapons used in it, prices began to go up slowly. I remember reading a story about a guy who bought a Spencer for a couple of dollars out of Bannermans table of " guns for decoration" sometime around 1940.

[walnut red]

A friend was a gun dealer in Columbus O. from the late 30's into the mid 80's and specialized in odd items. He once showed me a Spencer he had build in the early 1950's, one of a dozen or so he had built from parts from a Government surplus auction. Apparently they were making room for the WW2 surplus stuff just coming into the warehouses. My American Legion post was still able to get surplus 30-40 Krag blanks from the Government in the early 90's. When that finally dried up we switched to Garands for parade rifles and put the Krags in storage. Just like we did with the Trapdoor Carbines in the 60's when 45-70 blanks dried up.

[toot]

S & S, in NY. has conversion's for them.