This was a find this morning at our local OAC gun show. A 1873 Trapdoor Springfield with some unique history. The gun is marked with MGM Studios marking, and appears to be internally in unfired condition. The gunsmith who owned this rifle passed away Tuesday, and before he retired a lot of us locals used him for color case, rust bluing, and stock replacement. George was in the same class as Al Springer, and this was a rifle he was restoring for himself, but never finished. He got the breech block color cased, and got the new stock inletted and fitted, but didn't get the bluing done, or the stock externally sanded or finished.
The the gun was in sad shape externally as many movie guns are, but the bore appears as new inside! Everything mechanically is like new, so George just planned to refinish and restock it before he passed. A mutual friend brought some of George's guns in to sell, and I grabbed this one as an easy project to finish up. All the hard work is done, so once it's sanded, and rust blued, then it's set to go.
I also got a small box full of Trapdoor parts including another complete action, and a bunch of other assorted parts for the actions. So I'll see if things like the trigger and tang assembly are maybe better than the one on the gun, or if I might need any spares before selling off the extra parts.