Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

[militiaman1835]

I have searched threads and have Craig Barry's book but can't find answer. I am considering buying a used Armi sport Richmond I came across and need opinions on what needs to be done to defarb it and bring it in line with originals. From Craigs book I'd guess stock profile needs work like the repro springfields? What else besides the usual markings removal? Jim Hensley

[Bill]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

The Armisport Richmond comes with a brass plated butt plate and nose cap. I would suggest removing the plating. Many Richmonds had iron butt plates and nose caps. As an aside, I replaced the butt plate on a friend's Armisport Richmond, with a cast brass plate. Most difficult inletting job I ever did.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

Hallo!


In brief and to over-generalize...

In "Time," the Armi Sport "Richmoind would fall in the range of post March 1862 when William Wentzel altered the lockplate machinery to reduce the height of the "Maynard hump" to help remedy problems with musket caps.
March is also the last month iron buttplates were made, although production records for April are missing. So May is the known first month of no more iron buttplates.
Brass nosecaps are believed to have been adopted after March of 1862 pursuant to James Burton's preferences, after an initial number being obtained thorugh brass casting contractors and brass riveted.

Removing the plating from the brass buttplate and brass nosecap, on a medium humped "1862" dated lockplate, would basically "set" that Richmond to a late Spring of 1862 manufacture onwards.

I do not have an AS one handy to check, but the other factor would be a straight versus swelled ramrod, and whether the rear sight was a late model
M1855 short range type rear sight or just the AS M1861 one?
And whether the lock has an M1855 style hammer unmilled for the primer tape cutter slot versus the AS M1861 one

But yes, basically, the so-called "de-farb" for Italian "Richmonds" are the same for the M1855 and M1861 arms.

And Herr Bill is correct. The configuration, dimensions, and angles of Italian parts such as the buttplate are "off." This makes swapping out reproductions of original parts a "complicated chore."

Curt

[Bill]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

Curt,

Like you, I don't have a AS Richmond in front of me. I own a Euroarms Richmond. It has a low hump and the lock is dated 1863. My memory is my buddy's AS had a higher hump and was dated 1862. Was the height of the hump reduced twice?
(The Euroarms Richmonds come with cast brass butt plates and nose caps)

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

Hallo!

Ah, time for some Curt-Heinrich Richmond heresies.... ;) :)

Back in the 1980's when I was a custom Civil War gunbuilder... conventional lore was that due to increasing shortages of iron, there were four heights of Richmond "humps" corresponding to the years caused by individual worker hand-grinding:

1. 1861 High Hump: unmilled M1855 lock plates with a "full hump"
2. Late 1861 Medium Hump: with 1/3dish of the top of the hump gone and the forward edge ground down or recessed to facilitate the use of percussion caps
3. 1862-1864 Low Hump: with 2/3ish of the top of the hump gone and the forward edge ground down or recessed to facilitate the use of percussion caps
4. late 1864-1865 No Hump: with no hump like a U.S. M1861 lockplate

As a result, a number of makers offered (and still offer) Richmond lockplates made to this "understanding."

However, research in the 1990's on both a larger number of originals as well as surviving documents and work orders from the Richmond Armory has shown most all of that to be bunk.

In History, there are:

1. 1861-1862 full, high humps of the unmilled M1855 plates
2. March or April 1862-1865 on low hump with roughly, visually half of the hump gone and recessed to facilitate the use of percussion caps
3. some few 1864-1865 no hump lockplates ground down to U.S. M1861 profile

The reason is simple.

1. The initial use of unfinished Harper's Ferry unmilled lockplates, followed by the use of the machinery to make M1855 lockplates omitting the Maynard primng system milling.
2. In March 1862, William Wentzel spent two days altering the lockplate machines to make medium-high "low hump" and cap recessed plates which were then used for the rest of the War.

I don't have a Armi Sport or Euro Arms 1862 and 1863 "Richmond" on hand to comment.
From memory... IIRC, the AS has the better profiled lock while the EA has a rounded hump that is a wee bit too low and lacks the cap "finger nail sliver" recess. (Although one could be added).
And both use M1861 barrels with the thick rear "fence" rather than the thin rear fence of the M1855 barrel (the hump offers the protection to the shooter).

But all in all, there is still much "1980 lore" around, as well as in reproductions.

Sigh.

Curt
Richmond Mess

[Bill]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

Hallo!

Ah, time for some Curt-Heinrich Richmond heresies.... ;) :)

From memory... IIRC, the AS has the better profiled lock while the EA has a rounded hump that is a wee bit too low and lacks the cap "finger nail sliver" recess. (Although one could be added).

Sigh.

Curt
Richmond Mess

Curt,

One more stupid question. What do you mean by "Nail Sliver Recess"? Like most people, I haven't had many opportunities to handle original Richmonds.

[stri volunteer]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

What he means is the flash shield behind the cone, I think. Original Richmond barrels did not have a flash shield behind the cone as the "hump" was there. The repros use 1861 barrels and do not grind the flash shield down to make it look like a 1855 barrel as used on the original CS rifle-musket.

As far as what to model the CS Richmond would be, since it was made from US 1855 parts, at the time it was referred to as a model 1855.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

Hallo!

Sorry for the confusion...

No, not the "flash shield" or "fence" behind the cone on M1861 barrels due to the loss of protection from the former M1855 "hump."

I was referring to the recess in the forward portion of the Richmond "low hump" that Wentzel added to create space to allow for easier use of the
"4 wing" musket cap as it needed added space or clearance between the cone and the forward edge of the "hump."

Some folks refer to the "relief" recess area as a "fingernail sliver."



The area is in too much shadow, but here is a top down view:



Curt

[Bill]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

Curt and Hunter,

Thanks guys. I compared my Euroarms Richmond with an original M-1855. The lock plate on the original M-1855 actually fits over the barrel. It looked to me that if you just ground the flash shield off the repop's barrel you'd have gap between the lock plate and barrel. As Curt said, it would be an easy matter to file the finger recess in the lock face. Have either of you made this conversion?

Thanks,

[ACo.]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

Herr Schmidt, your posts are always factual and interesting. Thanks for posting. :)

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Armi sport Richmond rifle musket question?

Hallo!

Bitte sehr, Herr T.P.

Herr Bill...

Sorry no. Not having or having access to an AS or EA Richmond makes this next to impossible.
I suspect, expect, that the AS and EA simply use their M1861 barrels and BOTH their M1855 and Richmond have the lockplate made to accept the "fence" or "flash shield."

When I built custom M1855 RM's and R's, and Richmonds, I used repro M1861 barrels and filed off the "fence" but there was no gap because the repro's of the original M1855 lockplates were not fudged for "M1861 type" barrels."

If I had both repro Richmond's I could better answer your question.

But, I do believe that the Italian "hump" can be filed or "Dremel-tooled" to reproduce the post March/April "Wentzel" cap relief feature found on low hump Richmonds 1862-1864.

On the other hand, the repro original lockplates I eventually used (after correcting the Richmond "bunk" and "lore" from the early 1980's) match the orig configuration and need no further work.
(But as we know, fitting a repro of an original part, or original part to Italian reproductions is, can be, to be polite, "problematically a skill-based challenge." :) )

Curt