Model 1816 Conversions being used in the union

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Model 1816 Conversions being used in the union

When David Burt was here in the States a few months ago, he was looking for an Enfield with CW provenance. I told him if he wanted a weapon with the greatest likelihood of Civil War usage, pick up a US 1816/22 converted to percussion or a Potsdam or a Belgian, but not an Enfield. Those smoothbores that survived the conflict were not widely used anywhere else, or sold back into the gun trade post-bellum like the more modern US model rifle-muskets and P53s.

Too many Khyber Pass Enfields showing up at gunshows with fresh looking "CS" inspection stamps. Get a big, heavy, unwieldy "musket of the old style." Nobody is knocking those off.

[fortdonelsonrelics]

Re: Model 1816 Conversions being used in the union

Check out the Book ' Arming the Suckers ' - it has most all of the Illinois units and the weapons reports. You will see many early Illinois units were first issued a variety of European arms.

John Walsh

[David Fox]

Re: Model 1816 Conversions being used in the union

Not to be redundant, but as the range of so many critcal Civil War engagements was measured across cow lots and widow's back yards, and as range estimation training was not, say, up to the standards of the pre-WW II Marine Corps, Pumpkin Slingers capable of discharging ball, buck-and-ball, and buckshot loads were never truely obsolete in the 1860s. I'm minded of those New Jersey boys crounched behind the stone wall, clutching .69s stoked with up to 24 buckshot, as Pickett, Pettigrew, and Trimble's greycoats hove into range. To face several hundred determined men so armed explores the limits of human misfortune.