Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

[ndnchf]

I hope it's OK to post this link. I have nothihg to do with selling it. Mods - pelase delete if this is not allowed.

http://www.collegehillarsenal.com/sh...&cat=13&page=1

I was just looking at this rifle on the College Hill web site - its a beautiful piece. I was intrigued by their observations on the original finish of various parts; e.g. Blued trigger guard, brown lacquered barrel etc. Anyone else surprised by this?

[Blair]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

Steve,

The National Armories, during the production of the M-1855's, were experimenting with what type finish would best preserve the metal parts. For both storage and field service.
The brass mounted Rifles will be found most often with brown barrels as was the practice for the earlier M-1841's, but may also be encountered with bright barrels later in their production.
The iron mounted Rifles were produced at Springfield from 1858 to 1860 and at Harpers Ferry between 1858 to 1861 and replaced the earlier brass mounted Rifle. These may be found with bright, brown or blued metal finishes and often in various combinations there of.
This type of experimentation stopped primarily due to the need to produce firearms for the War. Post War firearms will show that the Blued finish of the metal parts would become standard.

[David Fox]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

Not to contradict Comrade Taylor's observation, but one wonders, regarding the M.1855 rifle which was, I believe, produced chiefly for State militia orders under the 1808 act, if finish variations might not have been due to State preferences(?) I dunno. No such variations exist for muskets and rifle-muskets of which I'm aware from the few years of browned M1816/22s until the M.1863/64 rifle-muskets with odd permutations of bluing, casehardening, and national armoury bright.

[ndnchf]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

I am especially surprised by the browned barrel. I know the 2nd variation 1816s were browned as were the 1841s, perhaps others. I don't doubt they were experimenting with finishes, but after 30+ years of experimenting with browned barrels, you would think they'd have reached a verdict by 1861. But knowing army red tape and snafus, I guess its not too surprising. When new, the blued iron furniture and browned barrel must have made for a strikingly different appearance than the typical armory bright version. It sure is a beautifuly preserved rifle and great photos too.

[Blair]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

David,

The M-1855 "Rifles" were intended to replace the M-1841's.
The 1808 Militia Laws were to supply obsolete but serviceable firearms to the States. This was so they could maintain an active Militia.
During the 1850's Harpers Ferry was heavily involved in converting older Flint lock Muskets still in storeage in the National Armories.
The last half of the 1850's Harpers Ferry was instrumental in altering (up grading) almost all of the M-1841's within the National Armories. These arms will be slated to up grade the arms being assigned to State Militia System.
The intent of this system was to keep the most modern firearms available within the hands of the regular service.
The M-1855's will not be assigned to the Militia status untill the later half of 1862, when the new model 1861's were becoming available to replace them.
Many States will "up grade" the firearm already in their position at their own expence. Work done under contracts let by the individual State. There maybe a great deal of variation in these State owned "up graded" weapons.

[Blair]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

Steve,

I built up an iron mounted '55 Rifle about 25 years ago. I knew about these experimental finishes even back then and wanted to see how this would look on a new firearm.
I started by flame bluing all the furniture (except the nose cap because these were riveted to the stock when they were fitted). Re assembled the firearm... didn't like the look of it.
I then browned the barrel and re assembled it... didn't like the look of that either. Ended up polishing it all back out to an Armory Bright finish. Now, it looked right! (just my opinion)

The Armory would not have done this to very many firearms to be able come to a conclusion. Some would be issued out for servie while others would be kept in storage.
This would give the respective Armory a good idea which finish provide the best protection, without having to have large numbers of firearms involved.
I think what is surprising about this firearm is that so much of the original "experimental" finish has survived.

[ndnchf]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

Thanks for your throughts gents. The late 1850s sure were a facinating time of weapons development. This example offers a glimpse of yet another variant. This offers something else to condsider when building my '55 as discussed in the "1855 mystery lock" thread.

Thanks

[Blair]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

Steve,

Please keep in mind that the experiments with metal finishes were never done with enough firearms to be classified as a true "variant".
The Lock plate you have is dated 1861 and marked Harpers Ferry. For Federal usage this limits you to a type II "Rifle" variant or the type III Rifle Musket Variant as was being made at Harpers Ferry at the time it was captured by VA. State troops.
As a firearm assembled by VA.'s Richmond Armory, you do have some additional options available to you. As the available parts and pieces were being fixed or reassemble into serviceable firearms.
I would suggest you decide which US variant (there are three in the Rifle Musket types and two in the Rifle types) or which VA/CS assembled variant will offer you the most service (within reenacting) for the impression you wish to portray.
The VA/CS variants maybe quite numerous depending on what parts and pieces were left over from Harpers Ferry as the weapon were/are being assembled. Large number of things like replacement stocks for earlier model arms were in storage at Harpers Ferry for doing repairs on model arms that were no longer in production. VA/CS Armory personnel will put all of these to use as they are needed, along with many unfinished parts like lock plates.
This is just a suggestion on my part.

[David Fox]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

1) Re: rifle, musket, rifle-musket finish in the 1850s. Excerpts from "Recomendations of the Ordnance Board", 18 May, 1860 (Claude Fuller, "The Rifle Musket", page 15): "All muskets, as well as rifles, were formerly browned at the armories. It was found , after many years experience, ...that the arms were liable to rust in store...bright arms kept best. The rifle being required for more accurate aiming, it was considered best to continue to brown the barrels....(R)evolvers and carbines made at some private establishments are blued {italics in the original}, so as to present a very neat appearance. We are ignorant of the details of the process...the board recommends...trials...to assertain if this method would answer for our arms." The report goes on to recommend trials by troops in the field comparing bright, browned, and blued arms "if the latter process should be found applicable...the mountings of all browned arms to be blued".

2) As to the intent of production of rifles (Common, M.1841, M.1855): Production of these 33-barrelled weapons always exceeded by a startling number the very limited issuance needs of the tiny Regular Army, which in turn consistently had a restricted table of organization calling for riflemen. It has been my impression (fatal words for the forum, I acknowledge) that rifle production was chiefly to serve the several State militias. In the case of the M.1841 rifle for instance, 70,796 of this model alone were produced; about seven M.1841 rifles for every enlistee in the entire U.S. Army Regular Army of 1854, the last full year of M.1841 rifle production. I've been going nuts this last hour trying to find a reference I know to be in my library somewhere: an Army ordnance officer opining that the brass furniture on the newly adopted M.1855 rifle had as an especial asset its attractiveness to militia forces. Bingo!...just found the citation! Reilly's "United States Military Small Arms, 1816-1865", page 39: "To the later {Colonel Craig, head of the Ordnance Department} must go the credit for suggesting the main features of the rifle, including the colorful brass furniture which, he felt, would lend a martial air to the various state militia regiments". Thus, the M.1855 rifle was actually designed with an eye for its appeal and fitness for the militia.

[ndnchf]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

Blair,

In the 1855 Mystery lock thread I mentioned the impression I want to represent, just as a reminder I'm pasting it below:

"Here is a little background on my original question:
My unit, the 13th Virginia, Co. A (Montpelier Guard) was present at Harpers Ferry in the May-June 1861 timeframe. There is a book at the Library of Virginia in Richmond which is misleadingly named "Roster, 1851-1861, of Company A, 13th Infantry Regiment". This book was taken at Harpers Ferry by the Montpelier Guard (and it is inscribed in the front as such). The original purpose of the armory book was to record muskets, cones, wipers, etc at the Armory. The Montpelier Guard then used this book to record equipment issued to their troops.

One of our members has reviewed this book. He found that by mid-June 1861 (mostly 11 June) all the soldiers had a "minnie musket and all equipments". Unfortunately, there are no other details pertaining to the muskets.

So we are assuming (a hazardous thing I know) that these were M1855s from the HF armory or assembled from parts from the armory.

My thought is to use this 1861 HF lock to convert my JRA Euroarms 1861 to a represent a M1855 variant that could have been issued to the 13th Va. Co. A. at Harpers Ferry."

So the question is "what did these muskets look like?" It seems likely (but not necessarilly) that they were iron mounted Type IIIs. But could have been something hastily assembled from what was on hand. We'll probably never know for sure as there are no known close up photos of the 13th Va showing their arms around this time nor detailed descriptions of their arms. So that leaves some flexibility, but flexibility within what bounds? When I visited John Zimmerman recently he suggested that some of the last HF (1861 production) Type IIIs rifle muskets were made without a patchbox, stating he had seen a HF document from early 1861 indicating the remaining patchboxes were to be transfered to rifle production only. Could a valid case be made that some Type IIIs assembled in early 1861 or under the new management (VA troops) were made without patchboxes and with other than armory bright finishes? Perhaps, especially if the new management were using whatever was at hand.

As mentioned above, my goal is to make a '55 that could have been issued to the 13th VA while at Harpers Ferrry in June of 1861. I'm not looking for an excuse to build an odd-ball variant, but I would consider non-standard features if they are plausible for the situation. The College Hill '55 rifle shows some of the interesting things that were going on at that time.

David -thanks for digging into your references for those interesting tidbits of information.

[gsusat]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

A few thoughts. You are on a good track with the numbers produced relative to the regular army enlistment numbers. The American system even then was a small regular army and large infusions of men at a national emergency. The Mexican war being somewhat of an exception. That being said the 1850's were a time of great technological leap both at the armories and in arms in general. The development of the rifled arm for all of the infantry was a major advancement. To that date the Rifle was an arm for elete troops - the rank and file being armed with smoothbores. Between 1850 and 1860 you have the transition of the army from flintlock smoothbore weapons to rifle musket - look at the Mansfield reports who ended is tour of the forts in Texas in Feb 1861. That in itself is a great shift. Next the whole plan of the military stockpile of arms which in the 1840's had embarked on a systematic inspection and review of the process of percussioning the reserves of muskets and then in the 1850's all those converted muskets would not stand the pressures of rifling.

Couple of housekeeping notes. 1855 rilfes were made only at Harper's Ferry and not Springfield. Harper's Ferry altered a small number of muskets. The plan was to make the machiney to alter the muskets and then send the machinery from location rather than ship tens of thousands of muskets to a central location. The hammers were made at HF and Sp and then shipped out with the machinery.

The 1855 series resulted in part from the sceintific study Burton did at Harper's Ferry on bullet design and rifling design. That experimentation continued through the 1850's. In a way one gets the impression that the 1855 rifle was somewhat of a pet project. When the more economical rear sight was adopts in 1858 the rifle muskets were modified but there was restance to stopping the long range rear sight on the rifles. Look at the figure 8 sight on the brass mounted rifles, the nature of the 1855 rifle belt with the sliding loops to help support the knapsack and the discussion of adopting two smaller cartridge boxes. This points to a intergrated load bearing system that was being experimented with. Look also at the focus on long range shooting. The stadia sight was developed and manuals on Target practive were written. Again some of this is speculation and I suspect that there was still some uncertainty on where to go with this, but is does give one pause.

The 1855 rifle does seem to be the culmination of the muzzle loading era. As to wether the intent was to go to militia in lieu of regular troops, I would speculat that both Regulars and Militia would get them. Part of the numbers produced has to do with the size of the operations at the armories and to keep a good trained work force that could be expanded in a national emergency, they do need to maintain a certain size. That was born out when Springfield expanded and by the later part of the war was making over 100000 rifle muskets a year.

Still to me there are few weapons that compare with a 1855 rifle.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

Hallo!

"So the question is 'what did these muskets look like?' It seems likely (but not necessarilly) that they were iron mounted Type IIIs. But could have been something hastily assembled from what was on hand. We'll probably never know for sure as there are no known close up photos of the 13th Va showing their arms around this time nor detailed descriptions of their arms. So that leaves some flexibility, but flexibility within what bounds? When I visited John Zimmerman recently he suggested that some of the last HF (1861 production) Type IIIs rifle muskets were made without a patchbox, stating he had seen a HF document from early 1861 indicating the remaining patchboxes were to be transfered to rifle production only. Could a valid case be made that some Type IIIs assembled in early 1861 or under the new management (VA troops) were made without patchboxes and with other than armory bright finishes? Perhaps, especially if the new management were using whatever was at hand."

Flexibility within what bounds...

First, I am ALWAYS keen to learn new things and to see our Collctive Knowledge expanded. I would like to see the material referenced to John Zimmerman. Mr. Zimmerman has a long reputation of some "interesting" pronoucements (to be polite and to extend the possibility).

IMHO...

In the event of problems at Harpers Ferry Armory, the commandant there was to destroy the works. That in and of itself is interesitng considering the lax if not laxidaisical efforts the Feds spent securing basically half of their production capacity. If we accept Mounted Rifles Lt. Roger Jones' report at face value (and overlook the possibility that he inflated his efforts), he destroyed "15,000 stand of arms" and burned the armory "proper." But that was closer to 4,000-5,000 RM's and R's. Pollard said that they recovered 5,000 rifles in an "unproved state" and 3,000 finished, 14,000 stock burned RM's were restocked at Richmond. With the salvaged and captured machinerey, Jackson reported that they could produce 1500 RM's in 30 days.

HF, under "Virginia," continued to produce RM's for roughly two months. Basically, they were assembling RM's from finished and un-finished parts before the works wnet to Richmond under the CS.

I believe that HF, hd sowed down or stopped production of the M1855 pending receiving the machinery and tooling for the new forthcoming M1861 shortly before HF fell to the Confederates. As a result, HF did not have the new tooling otherwise the Confederates would have used it, and not the M1855 machinery to make their "Richmonds."
As previously shared the 1850's were a whirlwind of change that "evovled" faster than the system. Meaning, the rifle-musket was the new "advant guard" weapon-of-choice, and even though the new M1861 RM was a modified M1855, there was NO M1861 Rifle in the works.

At any rate, what Virginia did was to assemble and finish-assemble the late model HF M1855 RM type. And then CS/Richmond continued assembling from parts, substituting their own manufactured parts as the HF stock pile or inventory was used up.

In brief and to over-generalize... IMHO, we may be turning the telescope around backwards with the (real) possibility that Virginia and later Richmond did very much with whatever small size inventory of parts and salvageable or cannibalized older versions of the M1855 RM or R that might have been in inventory or "in the shop" for repairs. NOT that there were none, just that the number or numbers were not great.

The other side of the equation, IMHO still, is the hard part of knowing what is part of the original gun or what was a later deletion, missing part, or "broken off" such as a missing patchbox with the patchbox mortise in the stock, or say, a Maynard primer door broken off its mounting stud. Of course, some things are easier such as a partially milled lockplate or a non-milled lockplate hurredly pressed into service.

Looking at a narrow slice of time and place, and going with the possilbe but undocmetned fiction that "a" Virginai regiment received either captured intact M1855 RM's, or Virginia assembled M1855 RM's limits how far we should be "stretching" either a choice of:

1. an intact 1861 dated M1855 RM, or
2. an intact 1816 dated M1855 RM assembled by Virginia, or
3. an M1855 RM with unfinished parts particularly some of the lockplate mortising, or
4. a "VA Richmond" RM carrying VA stampings on the early unmilled lockplate, or
5. a "CS Richmond" RM of early, mid, or late production

Others' mileage will vary...

Curt
Longtime fan and former custom-builder of M1855 and Richmond RM's and R's Mess

[Blair]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

Steve,

I believe the patch box Zimmerman may have been referring to was the new circular design that was being planned for the new M-1861 RM
There are two features that make the type III M-1855 Rifle Musket different from the earlier type I and type II's.
1. the introduction of the steel patch box of the same style type as was used on the Rifle.
2. the brass nose cap was replaced with an iron nose cap.

My suggestion to you with the lock plate marking you have is to make up a standard type III '55 Rifle Musket. My reason for suggesting that is because it is a standard regulation type III '55 and you will be able to use it for a Federal impression if you have occasion to.

If you are going to use a Euroarms '61... you will need the patch box and screws and you will have to replace 1861 type rear sight with the 1858 type rear sight.
When you inlet the lock plate, do this without the barrel in the stock. After the lock is inlet with all its internal parts and it works correctly... fit the barrel. You will find you have to file fit the fence portion of the bolster to match the contours of the "hump" of the lock for the boster to fit into the lock recesses properly.
This is a suggestion from someone that has done this many times.

[gsusat]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

I did not sign my earlier post and I apoligize.

One of the interesting speculations is did HF have the new lock omitting the Tape Primer. There is some suggestion that the Fayetteville lockplate was made with the new lock tooling. I have not seen any period references to that effect. A related question would be were there seperate lock making setups at the rifle factory and rifle musket factory. If there was only one setup that would leave Fayetteville out of the picture might be why Richmond made their humpback locks. Food for thought.

I think at some point the record will not provide detailed information on the distribution of the different versions of the weapons. Both Springfield and HF applied the changes in production differently. The three changes to the rifle musket appear seperately on the Springfield. First the rear sight was changed then the nosecap and finally the patch box was added giving - really 4 versions at Springfield. Yet the Harper's Ferry's all seem to be the early or the late pattern - giving you 2 versions. Harpers Ferry continued production into 1861 while Springfield stopped.

One aspect on the finishes that I have ofen wondered about. The bluing and casehardening specifically. I do not know if the blueing on Tim's rifle was heat blue or a seperate blueing compond. The parts on these weapons were iron. Today we are used to steel but with the iron they dealth with the process of hardening the iron. I wonder if all the locks were hardened and then the colors polished off - the main purpose being to harden the lock plate to resist wear. To us today we think of it a colorful finish, but the hardening was an important goal. The same with heat blue - was that a result of the anealing process that usually was polished off.

I guess we all like detail but at a point it seems the documentation is not there whether your unit got high hump Richmonds or low hump ones.

It is fun to talk about it though....

George Susat
Confederate Guard

[GPM]

Re: Awesome Harpers Ferry M1855 dated 1861 rifle

"One of the interesting speculations is did HF have the new lock omitting the Tape Primer. There is some suggestion that the Fayetteville lockplate was made with the new lock tooling. I have not seen any period references to that effect. A related question would be were there seperate lock making setups at the rifle factory and rifle musket factory. If there was only one setup that would leave Fayetteville out of the picture might be why Richmond made their humpback locks. Food for thought."

The earliest production rifles from Fayetteville have the same high hump and medium hump lockplates (type I and type II). Type I were unfinished plates from H/F, the type II plates were supplied by Richmond until August of 62. Where the tooling for the low profile plate came from is not documented. Speculation is that it either came from Richmond since they had possession of the guages, or were made at Fayetteville's own shop. The main argument against the former is that Richmond never adopted the low profile plate.