A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

[threepdr]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Craig,

Have you found that the Bernadelli stocks are about 7/8 inch too short? I'm converting one and realized that after I bought all the parts. It looks like Bernadelli copied an original with a short band, but produced it with the long band.

I'm not sure how I will attack the problem. I may have to put a new forearm on it to make it right and get it to pass inspection for the NSSA. I can get one from Dunap for $60 but I recall another gentleman, Steve Jensco that made them cheaper. I can no longer find his website.

Anyone have Jensco's URL or contact information?

The thread has been fun. Its a bit anal, but I love the tiny details on building these guns.

Thanks

[OldKingCrow]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

delete this

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Hallo!

My pard Steve Jencso has quit/retired due to spinal problems and surgery, and has sold off his machinery.
He has sold off the last of his leftovers and inventory at the last two or three Mansfield OH CW shows.

You can splice the forestock, using the lower band to hide the joint.
You might also be able to extend just the "nose" by splicing a little length under the nosecap/upper band which may be less time and and work. Considering the wood type differences, there may be less cosmetic work and hiding with a splice under the upper band.
Curt

[Craig L Barry]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Mark:

Yes, that's true...and the parts do not interchange between the Zolis and Bernies. Locks, etc are all just a little bit off, ramrods are a different diameter. I hadn't thought about the Bernie being a copy of an arsenal conversion with a short double band, but that makes a lot of sense.

And I agree that the level of engagement on this subject is encouraging. The best thing about the US 1841 may just be the variety of options from original 1841s that you can copy in a reproduction. One particularly grating aspect of the hobby is all those stacks of nearly identical .58 rifle-muskets, most of them Enfields. How do people tell which one is theirs?

[threepdr]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Too bad about Mr. Jensco.

I can't splice this one under the front band. I could splice some wood into the band spring hole and move the spring forward, but I'm afraid it will come out cheezy. I'll end up buying a Dunlap replacment forearm and splicing under the rear band.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Hallo!

IMHO, Steve is one of the unsung heroes in the Hobby for all of the stocks and barrels he produced, as well as the original and repro original parts he offerred over the years.

Sadly, Steve has Kyphosis really bad, and had extensive surgery having wedges inserted between his spinal vertebrae to try to straighten him up. He has had to wear a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" shell device.
As a result, he could no longer stand or bend over lathes, milling machines, or dupli-carver stock machines.

Which reminds me, my wife and I owe the Jencso's a dinner out.

Curt

[Daniel]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Todd, Interesting stuff. Maybe I am answering my own question now, but there is probably no telling what types of Miss rifles that Hatton's Brigade had. Hatton apparently did not get all of the Miss rifles from just one sourse. He wrote on June 3, 1861, " Am on a gun hunt-have not completed the arms of my regiment. Will do so, I trust, today or to-morrow." Your right about the 7th, they do appear to be armed with Enfields or 58s after Getttysburg.

It sounds like your ancestor was died in the wool Confederate coming back to Lee's Army after such a wound. My ancestor was also at Petersburg. Archer's/McCombs brigade was so decimated by that time that our ancestors probably knew or knew of each other.

Dan Stewart

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Hallo!

If he had died in the wool, he would not have recovered from the wound.

Just-a-funnin'...

Curt

[Todd Watts]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Family lore has it that while at home near Carthage, TN convalescing, he was visited by Federals and ordered to free all slaves. During this time his home was indeed in Fed-lines and the Emanc. Proc. was in effect. He supposedly did so telling the family slaves "if you come back, I'll kill you." Lore has it one did return and was secretly buried on the land (now under a lake). And, he also found 2 Yanks in his corn crib and likewise buried them somewhere (also now in deep water). I have reconstructed his timeline and realize these events likely did happen and happened in Feb/Mar '63 due to the Feds in the area and their mission. He reappears in VA in April but is listed as a hospital guard until being returned to the lines in August '64. I think he had to get out of TN in a hurry to justify an essentially crippled man to go back and sit for a year or more. He was captured at Petersburg on April 2 during the great break out. He'd been crippled at Cedar Mt. due to being "shot in the right knee" so my bet is he simply could not escape Petersburg and was one that made a fight of it to allow others to get away. That family was old Scot-Irish and was known to be "dangerous" among neighbors. (My daddy says I remind him of that side of the family.)

[Curt Schmidt]

M1841 "Windsor" Rifle, Colt alteration

Hallo!

Here are some pics of my M1841 "de-farb" project, (nearly finished save for barrel markings).

Colt smelled some money in the early War desire to refurbush M1841 Rilfes to "M1855 Rifle" parity in terms of .58 bore, rear sights, and the ability to mount a bayonet.
I am not sure of the motivation or the poitical connection, but Ripley notified Colt that rather than just alter rifles in government inventory, the U.S. would sell Colt some 11,368 M1841's for $10.00 each.
Colt siphoned off 468 of them and sold them to Connecticut for $25.00 each doing nothing more than adapting them to take a sword/saber bayonet.
Ripley was not happy.

In August ofo 1861, Colt started the work buying sword bayonets form Collins & Company for $3.00 plus clamping bands. Total cost in altering to Colt was $4.07 or a total of $14.07 per rifle for reboring, sighting, and the bayonet addition. (he was sneaky and did always rebore them.)
The "long range" rear sights conveniently came from Colt's M1855 Revolving Rifle.
Colt's first batch of 2000 altered rifles plus screw drivers and cone wrenches, wipers, ball screws, and bullet moulds, plus 100 cartridge boxes went out on November 19, 1861.
That created a flap, as no price had yet been agreed upon for them. A panel was formed to decide, and reached a decision on February 10, 1862 that $18.50 was fair to Colt and the Government. Colt billed the government on February 12.

The secnd shipment of 4,000 were sent out on May 6, 1862, to St. Louis Arsenal followed by batches of 500, 300, 600, or 200 rifles and appendages between MAy 9th and June 4, 1862
A total of 2,000 went to Washington Arsenal and 8,400 went to St. Louis.

On December 31, 1862 a number of unshipped rifles were transferred and stored at $5.00, then sometime in 1863 sold to Schuyler, Hartley, & Graham for $19.00 each.

Colt records shows that they made a profit of $30,201.34 from the U.S. Government, approximately $5,500.00 from Connecticut, and $7,110.000 from the sale to S.H. & G. Roughly a 26% profit of approx. $42,800.00 over the $162,788.33 investment.











Curt

(I have a suspicion that the M1855 Revolving Rifle rear sight was not too popular. The right angle corners are "sharp" and gouge and cut one's hands when handling the rifle. Some are found with slightly rounded corners which may be a reaction to the sharp "points.")

[rlhardingjr]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Matt, et al,

The lockplate you purchased from James River for your rifle, was it drilled for original or reproduction parts? Was there any fitting problems with the lock parts, etc.?

Also - any indication as to which configurations of '41's were carried by those two companies of the 36th Illinois at Leetown

Thanks!

[mslaird]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

The only configuration that I know of that the 36th was using was the type that had the barrels turned down to accept 1855 bayonets. They may have had saber bayonet arsenal converted Mississippis as well but I have not come across a specific reference to those. Bailey wrote in his memoir that the dead and wounded skirmishers from the Company that killed McCulloch were armed with Mississippi Rifles and that his men took those weapons from them. McCulloch was killed with a .58 caliber Minie/Burton ball so it corroborates both Bailey's statement and that the 36th received their converted Mississippi Rifles before the Battle of Pea Ridge.

The Whitney lock that Mark from JRA sent me was made for a Euroarms Mississippi.

I still have two or three Mississippi lockplates lying about, two from Zolis that I have removed all the finish and markings from that can be stamped to anything. I was going to try to work up a Robbins and Lawrence lockplate for a .54 Mississippi but I haven't had time to do it yet.

Curt, that is a fine Colt conversion. That one is another one that is my list of models to put together.

[David Fox]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

You fellows who contributed to this thread are in big trouble with my wife. I blamed y'all for coming-away from the Dalton, Georgia Civil War show today with a not-so-shabby 1851-date Whitney Mississippi, marked "NJ". Muzzle's turned for a socket bayonet. Far and away worst feature is that the bore's reamed out, alas, so off it goes to Hoyt for a liner. Query: what calibre would a Joisy modified Mississippi be: original .54 round ball or calibre .58 minie?

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

Hallo!

If memory serves...

Year end returns for 1862 shows only (?) the 12th NJ for NJ as having been
M1841 Rifle armed.
And I am not recalling any NJ contracts.

Many units maintained their unaltered and altered M1841's into 1864 when they were NUG exchanged for standard "Springfield" RM's increasing numbers went into storage at arsenals and depots.

What manner of rear sight does it have? (I am thinking of New York State alterations that focused on the bayonet either triangular or sword, a "Minie" type ramrod, but did not add a long range or short range rear sight.) They remained the original .54.
But the next dot to connect is going from NY to NJ...

Curt

[David Fox]

Re: A Mississippi Rifle by Todd Watts

It's clearly stamped "NJ" at the breach and has the simple, open original rear sight. Turning at muzzle is, to me, crude. There is no defined shoulder; the turning merges gradually into the regular barrel diameter and the bayonet lug is on the barrel bottom.