1842 Question

[calconfederate]

Does anyone here know if an original 1842 Springfield lock plate will fit an ArmiSport reproduction? I've heard from some people that it should just drop right in. But nothing is ever that easy, so I'm wondering how much fitting might be involved.

[calconfederate]

Re: 1842 Question

I've also put this question to Mike at the Rifle Shoppe and also asked John Zimmerman. Mike told me to buy one and try it, Zimmerman hasn't gotten back to me yet. Someone out there knows the answer.

[calconfederate]

Re: 1842 Question

I noticed Craig Barry contributes to this site. Like a lot of reenactors and skirmishers I have more than one of his books. I'll bet he would know.

[brown]

Re: 1842 Question

An armory plate either should or should not consistently fit. That may not sound helpful, but the armory made plates were supposed to be interchangeable. I've never tried to do this. If you can fit someone else's original plate into your repro musket, it SHOULD work with all.

[calconfederate]

Re: 1842 Question

An armory plate either should or should not consistently fit. That may not sound helpful, but the armory made plates were supposed to be interchangeable. I've never tried to do this. If you can fit someone else's original plate into your repro musket, it SHOULD work with all.

I should probably explain what I'm trying to do. I want to convert my ArmiSport 1842 to an 1842 Palmetto. The Rifle Shoppe has the distinctive Palmetto lock plate, brass barrel bands, including brass nose cap or front barrel band, which ever you prefer to call it. The Rifle Shoppe parts are all cast to fit originals, hence my question.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: 1842 Question

Hallo!

The M1842 musket was supposed to be the first of the new generation of interchangeable parts weapons. Which is mostly true. Sometimes a Springfield lock plate will not "drop in" a Harpers Ferry lock mortise or vice versa.

In brief, an original or an actual "reproduction of an original" (versus an Italian kinda/sorta look-alike but not reproduction) will not 'fit' an Italian stock. SOME, depending on the era or "generation" of the Italian stock may drop in the lock mortise or fit the mortise with just a tiny amount of inletting work.

The problem comes with the beefed up, over sized, slightly different breech configuration of the Italian barrel that gets in the way of the bolster portion of the original (or repro original) lock plate. The bolster area of the lockplate under the nose of the hammer must be milled or filled down to allow it to fit the bulky barrel.

Oddly enough, I have a minty Springfield 1845 dated M1842 lock sitting here in front of me at the moment that was milled down to fit an AS M1842 and "drop in" that used to be on my personal M1842.

Curt

- - - Updated - - -

Hallo!

Oh, forgot...

For such a "retroversion' project, you are going to find that reproductions of original parts will not (NUG) drop in, or fit, the mortises for them on the Italian M1842 because the Italian stuff "stylistically" looks "Right" in total but is not interchangeable most of the time with original parts as they are over sized or may have different thickness or angles, or geometry, etc., etc. (Pick something: butt plate, trigger plate, barrel bands, etc., )

Curt
Who once had the same idea of retroverting a Palmetto musket.

[calconfederate]

Re: 1842 Question

Hallo!

The M1842 musket was supposed to be the first of the new generation of interchangeable parts weapons. Which is mostly true. Sometimes a Springfield lock plate will not "drop in" a Harpers Ferry lock mortise or vice versa.

In brief, an original or an actual "reproduction of an original" (versus an Italian kinda/sorta look-alike but not reproduction) will not 'fit' an Italian stock. SOME, depending on the era or "generation" of the Italian stock may drop in the lock mortise or fit the mortise with just a tiny amount of inletting work.

The problem comes with the beefed up, over sized, slightly different breech configuration of the Italian barrel that gets in the way of the bolster portion of the original (or repro original) lock plate. The bolster area of the lockplate under the nose of the hammer must be milled or filled down to allow it to fit the bulky barrel.

Oddly enough, I have a minty Springfield 1845 dated M1842 lock sitting here in front of me at the moment that was milled down to fit an AS M1842 and "drop in" that used to be on my personal M1842.

Curt

- - - Updated - - -

Hallo!

Oh, forgot...

For such a "retroversion' project, you are going to find that reproductions of original parts will not (NUG) drop in, or fit, the mortises for them on the Italian M1842 because the Italian stuff "stylistically" looks "Right" in total but is not interchangeable most of the time with original parts as they are over sized or may have different thickness or angles, or geometry, etc., etc. (Pick something: butt plate, trigger plate, barrel bands, etc., )

Curt
Who once had the same idea of retroverting a Palmetto musket.

That answers my question. I had a feeling I couldn't be the first person to think of doing a project like this. Thanks for your help.