Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

[snsliberty]

I recently purchased a defarbed 1861 Springfield from Gunbroker. I think Lodgewood did the defarbing. The rear sight is darker than the barrel, blued I believe. I know some contract Springfields had blued sights. Does anyone know if this is proper, or did a gunsmith make a mistake? Thanks lads.
Brad Finfrock
High Privates

[Blair]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

Brad,

All the small parts on a '61 made by Springfield should be blued except for the side lock washers (escutcheons). The rear sight and all its component parts, butt plate screws. trigger guard screws, trigger, clean our screw, internal lock parts and their screws, barrel band springs, tang bolt and side lock screws should be blued.
M-1861's made under contract will show a great deal of variation in this.

[snsliberty]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

Blair:

Thanks for the information! All the parts you mentioned are indeed blued except the washers. First rate!
Brad

[gsusat]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

I guess I am curious. Where does the ides that the screws were blued come from? I went and looked at Reilly, Fuller and even the 1855 and 1863 Rifle muskets management phamplets and did not find anything on that. Now I have seen the rear sight, nipple, inner lock parts and trigger blued on a number of originals but not that list of screws.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

Hallo!

They were not so much "blued" blue, but quenched hardened which gave the parts a blue-black or blackish color.

They were NUG polished bright.

However, mint originals do show up with these blue-black parts, and black rear sight bases and leaves are fairly common even when everything else is bright. Over the years there have been much discussion and little or no documentation as to why. Some lads argue that they somehow left the factory that way. Some lads argue that the parts were mint unused factroy/armory surplus, and therefore had not been polished bright for some reason and were then used as replacement parts.
IMHO, I do not buy into the "replacement" parts on what are otherwise immaculate, mint, unused originals. While I have never read a documented explanation, IMHO still, i believe that there is a reson, or are reasons unknown to our COlelctive Body of Knowledge as to why. And it may be as simple as the factory was running behind on production and "skipped a step or two" that the inspectors were not concerned enough about to fail the piece as "unserviceable."

Others' mileage will vary...

Curt

[kb466]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

Brad,

All the small parts on a '61 made by Springfield should be blued except for the side lock washers (escutcheons). The rear sight and all its component parts, butt plate screws. trigger guard screws, trigger, clean our screw, internal lock parts and their screws, barrel band springs, tang bolt and side lock screws should be blued.
M-1861's made under contract will show a great deal of variation in this.

I beg to differ somewhat. I am lucky enough to own an exceptionally nice all-original M1861 made by Springfield and dated 1862. This rifle-musket is in its original finish. The only blued parts are the rear sight, the trigger and the nipple. The bluing appears to be an 1860's version of a nitre blue-- it is certainly not the modern bluing we are more used to. There may be internal blued parts on the lock, but I am unwilling to dismount the lock to find out. Aside from these three parts, there are no other external visible parts that are blued.
William Moyers

[kb466]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

A couple of more points... First, let me say that I am not a re-enactor but I collect and study US Miitary Arms, particularly those made at Springfield. I also build replicas to be as close to original as I can do. Now, as to understanding why parts might get "mixed up" on original weapons, it helps to understand how they were manufactured. Once they were interchangeable, which was certainly the case by the time of the Civil War, the parts were placed in bins and arms assemblers put them together. As the bins started to get low, new parts were added to fill them. Now, think about it-- the parts on the lower level of the bin never got used oftentimes, as parts were just added to fill the bin over them. The assemblers just took parts off the top of the bin and infrequently reached the earlier parts at the bottom. That might explain some of the differences in parts on various weapons. Now the blued parts that are on my M1861 are blued, no doubt about it. I can say the same about other M1861's I have looked at. Like I said, it looks like a nitre blue. They are not hardened and quenched to get a black finish. Now some parts were hardened and quenched in oil to get a hard outer shell and a black finish. But this is characteristic of M1873 Springfield Trapdoors, not 1861 Springfields. On Trapdoors, the lockplates, hammers, receivers and the early breechblocks were case hardened and then oil quenched, which resulted in a blue black finish. If they had been water quenched as was done with the later Trapdoor breech blocks, they would have been color casehardened. I am not trying to start an argument or a fight here, but am just trying to help clarify some of this.
William Moyers

[Blair]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

William,

With the adoption of fully interchangeable firearms, (this goes back to the adoption of the M-1841 Rifle and the M-1842 Musket) tens of thousands of these "small" parts could be made up well in advance of them being needed on new made firearm and/or replacement parts during repair or maintance. Thes 'small' parts could also be sent to various U S Arsinals across the Nation that were involved in doing such maintainace and repair work.
The National Armories that produced these small parts knew the best way to keep these until they were needed was to blue them. They would requirer no additional fitting or finishing as was the case in the older non interchangeable parts.

You may not want to do this but you might try removing one of the trigger plate screws on your '61 to see if the part of the screw protected by the wood is blued. You could also try this with one of the butt plate screws and a band spring to see what color the part is on the underside of protected areas.
I can understand why you may not consider this suggestion as an option. It may, however, be the only way you wil know for sure if they were blued.
Many of these firearms were polished to keep them bright. This periodic polishing will easily remove any bluing that may have been exposed to this after manufacturing polishing. The internal lock screws are and were most definately blued, but the part of the screw that is exposed to the lock plate surface are always in a bright condition (on firearms in good condition).

[kb466]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

I don't know that I want to remove any screws on my M1861, but I don't doubt what you are saying about some of the screws, such as buttplate screws being blued inside. It makes sense. By the way, I have a M1816 Springfield flintlock Musket, dated 1832 and many of its internal lock parts were blued. I also have a M1855 Springfield, dated 1860. I believe it has blued parts on the inside of the lock, particularly the smaller parts. I have seen the lock internals on other original M1861's and I seem to recall parts being blued there as well. I don't believe the M1816 or the M1855 had any external parts in blue except the nipple on the 1855 and that could be a replacement, but neither are in as good shape as the M1861, so I cannot say with certainty. The bluing on all these is the bright nitre blue or heat blue.
William Moyers

[Blair]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

William,

It can be difficult to determine what the original Armory finishes were on various parts and even on complete firearms after 140 plus years of various types of handling.
Some firearms models like the M-1841 Rifles and the M-1855 brass mounted Rifles came from the Armories with browned barrels. They may not have servived into the 21st Century in-the-brown. The "proper" finish from the Armories should, however, be with browned barrels.

[kb466]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

William,

It can be difficult to determine what the original Armory finishes were on various parts and even on complete firearms after 140 plus years of various types of handling.
Some firearms models like the M-1841 Rifles and the M-1855 brass mounted Rifles came from the Armories with browned barrels. They may not have servived into the 21st Century in-the-brown. The "proper" finish from the Armories should, however, be with browned barrels.

Blair,
You are absolutely right about this. It is hard to say what the original finish from looking at worn, 150 year old examples. That is why I am unwilling to say what the external finish is or was on some of my original muskets. However, my M1861 is in sufficiently nice unworn condition to say with certainty what the original finish was or is. In fact the blue on rear sight, nipple and trigger are 95% or better. Also, internal lock parts are often unworn though the outside may be worn, so you can see what the finish was on those internal parts. However as to external, worn finishes-- I wouldn't rely on those muskets too much.
William Moyers

[Blair]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

William,

It sound to me like you have an excellent firearm that you could use (if you choose to) that would extend your knowledge on the subject of the bluing of small parts.
It has been through the dismantling and examination of dozens of different models of firearms, over many years of study and researching, that I have been able to determine what parts were blued.
Not every Collector or Museum allow people to do this to firearms in their collections. I have been fortunate in that I have had the privilege of being able to do this.
This area of study/research has benefited me in building custom made CW firearms and or doing rebuild types of restoration work.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

Also true of the Enfield. I heard one collector who I consider to be knowledgeable (except for this stmt) say that he never saw a Civil War
Enfield that still had the bluing, which suggested to him that most were polished. I suggested he take the barrel out of the stock and see
if the underside was blued or bright. The bluing may have worn off in 150 yrs time, but the underside strongly suggests what finish was
like on the part originally. My understanding was the same as Blair's, that all the "small parts" of the US model 1861s were blued. I know Zimmerman
does his US model 1861 defarbs this way.

[McKim]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

What about the 645 Springfield US Model 1861 rifle muskets in the "Organ of Muskets" at Springfield Armory? If you view the "assembly views" you will see one that was disassembled for pics. Looking at that assembly view it looks like (to me) that the screws were blued but the exposed portion (heads) polished.

[gsusat]

Re: Questions about Defarbed Springfield Sight!

Thank you for including the pictures.

I looked a few longarms that I have access to and the screws have a somewhat bluish color in the thread portion and the visible portion is polished. And it was not consistant in color and not always there - even on the same rifle musket. Where it was there it did not look like the bluing on the sight or say a musket tool bluing. I wonder if the screws were anealed and got the color from the heating and cooling. One of the rifle muskets (HF 1855 RM) I looked at had a color casehardened trigger. Interesting.

To me the questions seem to be - were the screws intentionally blued ( with a finish) and if that finish was left exposed. I have looked at a number of nice origional and do not even recall seeing any of the screw heads blued. I have seen an 1840 Nippes alteration that had the external primer screw heads blued. I may have missed one or two but still it seems pretty rare. Look at all the mint Colt muskets - many of those were uncrated in the 1960's and the ones I have seen have polished screws.

It is interesting and in the hobby we seem to really get into the detail. It is fueled by an love of the guns which we all share. There is no substitute for going and looking at nice origional stuff.