Colt SAAs will rain screws if they are not tightened periodically or some sort of lock-tite used on them.
MLV
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Colt SAAs will rain screws if they are not tightened periodically or some sort of lock-tite used on them.
MLV
Yeah...and he probably said 'American made junk!' and pulled out his Beretta...ya think?Originally Posted by hydraulic
Retired...TWICE. Now just raisin' cows and livin' on borrowed time.
I remember seeing a program several years ago on the Little Bighorn Custer fight. Some historian/archaeologists took metal detectors and dug up a number of spent 45-70 cartridges from the battlefield. Then, by forensic analysis of the cases and having in their possesion several of the Springfields known to have been used in the battle, they mapped the locations of where the rifles had been fired. By doing this they were able to understand the flow of the battle and exact positions of the troopers. This was particularly elucidating because it provided hard evidence of the battle rather than human recollection and testimony. By the way, I believe Custer was carrying a Brit revolver.
1874; Doug Scott and Richard Fox were the archeologists. Cartridge cases from the battlefield were taken to Lincoln, Ne. where the National Park Service Midwest Division is headquartered and studied by Dick Harmon, firearms specialist at the fight, who used a Nebraska Highway Patrol comparison microscope to classify the cases according to the firing pin signature. In some cases it was possible to trace the movement of one of the combatants by following the distribution of one particular cartridge case around the battlefield. This illustrates the importance of not disturbing artifacts found in an historical site.
PS: Thanks, Mike.
Good evening
I was not there so have to rely on documents... But Custer was who he was and willing to sacrafice his command for his own personal achievement. The Army will always have that type. Imagine a tanker rolling into a fight without the main gun... ignoring the testimony of the scouts and refusing to listen to the sound advice of other officers & NCO's & Choosing to ignore equipment problems.
Custer had access to Gatlin Guns & small cannon. Custer chose to dismiss the reports of the Scouts. Custer was aragent and disregarded sound advise from his officers & NCO's. Custer placed his divided command into a situation where the known Trapdoor problem would cause certain failure. Sadly Custer was not the only casualty.
This senario happend before Custer & many times since. To bad Kings no longer do battle one on one.
"Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
Male Guanaco out in dry lakebed at 10,800 feet south of Arequipa.
I am by no means expert - but I have heard from past accounts that the black powder of the past burned a lot more moist than even the best powders of today. I shoot Swiss exclusively for matches, but will burn others on occasion for plinking. Although I think the other powders are better today than in the recent past, there is a difference in the fouling in my barrels when I shoot Elephant or Goex.
As a question here, if the powder did burn differently in the late 1800’s, do you think that it may have been why hard-powder fouling was not as much an issue on the battlefield – or due to the number of shots heating the barrel it negated the obvious advantage of moister burning BP?
I have been to the Custer BF several times, including once to watch the Indians re-enact the fight (that was the best time). The MC at the performance said that as Custer charged (out in front of course) he took a round in the chest as he crossed the river below Medicine Coolie. His men gathered him up, alive but mortally wounded, and retreated to the hill. Whereas, as mentioned previously, all semblance of organized order and fight was abandoned. The Indian version is interesting and makes the most sense to me – I just wish that we (white people) would have paid more attention to and believed the few stories that were told when the participants were alive. I have heard that many of the participants were shy about talking about the fight due to the thought that they would be persecuted for being there.
All this is very interesting.
Rick Patton
Cody, Wy
Mike
Ain't that the truth and so do Ruger and all the clone SSAs.
Larry Gibson
Larry,
I know about the Colts, never owned the clones, but my old three screw Ruger 45 Colt sure never loosens the screws. They came with blue Loc-tite on them from the factory. Got in 1972. Put lots of round through it and lots of hot rounds also. My cylinder pin doesn't snap out of place either. I have a Colt ejector rod housing on it which being steel is lots heavier then the factory aluminum and even it's screw hasn't backed out yet.
I might add the Colt cap n ball clones I have owned loosened their screws also.
Joe
Concerning the "known trapdoor problem" allegedly causing malfunctions during the Custer fight; this is the only battle where this supposedly happened. In the Battle of the Rosebud on June 17, the Twin Buttes fight, the Hat Creek fight, the Wolf Mountain fight in '77, and all other battles in which the Army used the 1873 Springfield there is no mention of problems with the carbine or the rifle. The archeological evidence supports the postion that the Springfield had negligable extraction failures.
If you haven't ridden on horseback that country over near the Custer Battlefield you simply can't understand how impossible it would have been to get wheeled gun carriages through it. Especially considering the gatlings were pulled by "condemed" cavalry horses.
My wife and I participated in the 1986 re-ride.
MLV
This is an interesting discussion. I'm a member of "Friends of the Little Bighorn Battlefield" and I recommend that group to anyone who wants to help study and preserve the battlefield and the story. http://www.friendslittlebighorn.com/
I also recommend all of Doug Scott's books if you want to seperate the actual forensic evidence from the century of spin written by people with pro and anti Custer agendas. (biblio below).
But the reason I'm commenting here is because throughout this discussion, no one has mentioned (probably the most important factor in running black powder) the Boolit!
I shoot cowboy action, SASS and NCOWS, sometimes with black powder, most of the time smokeless. And any of the "Soot Lords" who shoot bp will tell you that with the right bullet you can shoot an entire match (at least 100 shots out of 2 pistols and a rifle) without any wiping or cleaning.
If you use a boolit with a large grease groove (or two) that's made to carry a grain or more lube, chances are good that you won't have to worry about crudding up your barrel. The issue is keeping the bp residue soft and moist. Taking .44 WCF as an example, two good bullet designs are the Big Lube Mav Dutchman and the old and venerable Lyman 427098 (I'll try to attach an illustration I made for a different forum).
I'll have to go through my copies of the books below to see if there are any good illustrations of the bullets used by Custer and the Indians. I've seen them before but I can't remember what they looked like, concerning grease grooves and ability to carry lube through a hot revolver or rifle barrel. But at any rate, that's got to be one of the most critical issues concerning fouling and the combatants ability to keep shootin' without wipin' or cleanin'.
Here's a good start for scientific analysis of the LBH Battle:
Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn
By Douglas Scott, et al
This is the bible of the Custer Battlefield archeological digs from 1984-1985 and the number one selling Custer Battlefield archeological book sold on our website. Douglas Scott and his team each provide a detailed report from their specialized field that include: forensics, morphology, ballistics, and more.
=============
Archaeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle
By Richard Fox
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They Died With Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn
By Douglas Scott
=============
Archaeological Insights Into the Custer Battle
By Douglas Scott, et al.
First book released about the archeological digs at Little Bighorn -- this covers the 1984 dig only. What this book offers over all the others is the large slip-in map; one side spots every soldier marker on the battlefield along with its assigned number; the opposite side marks every artifact's location found on the battlefield.
Semtav, a bit off the subject (and an extremely interesting subject it is). If you are going to search the site with a metal detector you should know that plowing actually reduces the depth of detection. As metal lies in the ground undisturbed a "halo" is created by metal leeching into the soil surrounding the object producing, in effect, A larger target.
Mike
Don't you know they could have simply gone down the highway or taken the Forest Service roads? I actually have had a guy tell me that in all sincerity......
Larry Gibson
Captain Michaelis was an Ordnance officer assigned to Terry's department and accompanied the Terry/Gibbons column. He inspected the remaining arms (M8173 carbines and M1873 SAAs of the 7th Cavalry. It may come as shock to many but the 7th was not "wiped out" at the LBH. Only about 1/3rd were. Of the remaining 400+ carbines that CPT Michaelis inspected from the Reno/Benteen contingent only one example was found to have a shell stuck in the chamber. We must remember that these M1873s saw heavy use on the 25th and 26th of June, 1876.
From CPT Michaelis reports regarding that one carbine with the stuck case; "I send this report with a carbine received from CPT Moylan, 7th Cavalry, which became unserviceable by the blowing or tearing off of the head of the cartridge in the action of June 25th-26th, 1876, on the Little Big Horn. This is the only piece i obtained with a shell actually in it. I carefully extracted the cartridge a few days ago and found evidence of verdigris; the shell further shows that it must have had some very hard usage before insertion."
Considering all this are we to believe that only the Custer contingent had the bad ammo and the bad M1873s if there actually were that many? We also must ponder how the Indians managed to fire thousands of the captured 45-55 rounds at the Reno/Benteen contingent on the 25th and 26th out of all those "jammed" M1873s they took off Custer's troops. Perhaps they had their own ordnance officers and personnel who solved the problem and reloaded the ammo into suitable WW or R-P cases? Not likely.....
I also have conducted numerous tests comparing the "firepower" of the M1873 Carbine vs the lever action repeaters of the day. Given the length of the engagement 2-3 hours the sustained fire capability is far superior to that of the lever action. This particularly comes into play when one considers the shooting style and shooting skill of the plains Indian. If you think they were as good as many CASS shooters you are sadly mistaken. However, the skills of the average 7th Cavalry trooper in this case were probably not much better. My point is that the troopers, if trained, had a superior weapon and they also had a lot more ammunition than did most any of the Indians. How many rounds of ammo do you think the average warrior toted around in his LBE or saddlebags? Most of the Indians had only what was in their rifle or a small pouch. The soldiers had 50 rounds on them plus another 100 in their saddle bags. The soldiers carbines did not jam and the soldiers were not out gunned. The soldiers were actually pretty much untrained and lost tactical stability, broke and ran and the Indians took advantage.
One must ask; if the Indians were so superiorly armed and used such superior tactics how was it that the same Indians on the same day against pretty much the same types of soldiers did not wipe out the Reno/Benteen contingent? The Indians now had 250+ M873s and thousand of rounds of ammo they had taken from Custer’s contingent. If the Indians were so superior then why did they not wipe out all of the 7th? The answer is there and it has little to do with jammed M1873 carbines.
Larry Gibson
Larry: Something else not often considered is the factor of "targets." The Indians had, at least in the early part of the fight, massed formations of soldiers to shoot at. Even later for one target they had one man in every four trying to hold onto four horses. All they had to do with him was get a bullet anywhere into one of the horses and it would go wild, causing him to loose the others.
Conversely, the soldiers only had a quick shot at an Indian as he popped up from behind a sagebrush. Then he ducked down, moved fast to another spot, and popped up again for a quick shot or two. They would have been extremely difficult to hit. Furthermore the Indian garb made them harder to see, whereas the soldiers were (mostly) dressed in dark blue.
MLV
Mike is right about the impossiblity of getting Gatling guns up the Rosebud and down Reno Creek. On June 10 Reno was sent on a scout to find the trail of the Indians. He went up the Tongue, crossed over to the Rosebud and ascended that stream and found the enormous Indian camp that had recently been evacuated. A constant source of delay was the Gatling gun he had with him. On the 18th he reached the Yellowstone and reported that he had to leave the Gatling behind. It had turned over and they couldn't get it out of a ditch. Troops were sent out to retrieve it. On the 17th he had been about 60 miles north of where Crook was having his fight with the Sioux and Cheyennes. (No stuck cartridges). His report of the huge Indian camp on the Rosebud, and the great lodge pole trail up that stream made it obvious to Terry, Gibbon and Custer that there were a great many Indians in the area. They also knew that the camp was a golden opportunity, and if they hesitated, the camp would disperse and scatter and there would be no chance of capturing them and returning them to the reservation. Custer's plan of attack was a good one. Reno would cross the LBH and attack the camp which would hold the warriors while the women packed up a fled downstream. Custer would ride arround the camp, cross the LBH, capture the women & kids, and the warriors would scatter, only to come in and surrender at the agencies where the women & kids were being held. Only problem? No one knew how well the Indians had managed to arm themselves in the ten years since the Fetterman masacre.
Captain Michaelis may have found only one carbine with a ruptured case, but is there not an eye-witness account of the fight at Reno's position that makes particular mention of (Captain?) French moving among the men, clearing jammed carbines with the rod from his 50/70 infantry rifle? Is it also not possible that so few ruptured cases were found at Custer's position because troopers, in the midst of their desperate but apparently brief (30 minutes?) fight were not successful clearing that one case from their guns before becoming casualties? The carbines would have been picked up by indians who had more leisure to clear and use them against Reno.
Victor
"Always carry a firearm east of Aldgate, Watson."
Mike
All valid points and the reasons there was a "mutual" stand off for some time before the loss of tactical stability by the troopers. From further reports it appears the marksmanship of the troopers was probably as poor at that of the Indians. However, the evidence is there in both forensic and eye witness that the Indians had a healthy respect of the M1873s. They did maintain their distance for a considerable time. We must remember that a lot of these Indians were survivors of the Hay field and Wagon box fights. It was there they learned a healthy respect for not charging blindly against soldiers with TDs. If we look further at how the Indian's individual tactics evolved subsequent to those fights we see a continuing useage of tactics as you describe. These were evidenced in the earlier engagements and later engagements after the LBH battle.
Larry Gibson
Viclav
Yes there is such a report. However, that was late in the Reno/Benteen fight after some pretty hard useage. Also the report is really vague as to how many times and how many M1873 carbines were involved. There is no mention of stuck cases being a major problem in any of the officers reports. We must also remmber those same soldiers (remainder of the 7th, Brisban's 2 cavalry and the cavalry with Crook) continued on the campaign with the same issued M1873 carbines and the very same ammunition. The point is there is little fact to support any amount of jamming or stuck cartridge cases that would have been a factor in the battle. Thanks for the comments, it is always enjoyable to discuss the various aspects with those interested.
Larry Gibson
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