Question About CS Richmond Rifles

[stx]

Hello, I tried searching for an answer on this one but surprisingly found little. I recently bought a defarbed 62 Richmond Rifle from Armisport, but I noticed the ramrod is very loose in the channel. It slides in and out freely just from the momentum of moving the rifle. I took out the barrel to adjust the spoon, but found that there was no spoon to begin with. There is a channel for where a spoon would go, but no hole for a spoon pin.

I did find out that original rifles from the Richmond armory mostly did not have spoons and had skinny, non swelled ramrods, so is this just the way it’s supposed to be? Or is there some way I can fix it so the ramrod doesn’t come flying out?

Thanks!

Tim Koenig

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Question about CS Richmond Rifles

Hallo!

If a rifle-musket...

Initially, Richmond Armory had received 2,047 M1855 ramrods with swells, and the machinery to make them, from Harpers Ferry. in November 1861 James Burton recommened deleting the swell which would simplify production and cut costs.
There is no spoon.

Looking at RM production starting in October 1861, at the rate RM's were made, the available stock of HF ramrods with swells would have been used up roughly by mid December 1861.

If talking about the Richmond Short Rifle...

Richmond started assembling/making Short Rifles (not true rifles, just shorter RM's) first in July of 1864. They were made out of "old parts" which comes after several months of a lack of stock blanks due to a shortage of black walnut. Burton also authorized Macon to also do repairs writing "...the working of teh guns more important than appearance."
This created a slightly "new" group of arms along the lines of "Frankenguns" that were a mix of Richmond made parts, old parts, and parts scrounged and cannibalized from damaged arms as well as battlefield pick-ups when the South ended up in possession of a battlefield. So, there might be say M1861 parts mixed in the particular RM or SR depending on what was on hand that day.

You have some options. Go with a M1855/M1861 swelled ramrod. Or, see if the ramrod is a poor reproduction and too thin and then shop around for a straight ramrod of thicker diameter. Another possible fix, depending on how the Italians router.dupli-carved the stock and its tolerances... is to build up a layer of J & B Steel Epoxy on the bottom inside of the barrel bands (or maybe supplemented with a thin leather strip epoxied in place) . Or, sometimes, the tolerances are such that only the upper band needs to be built up to put more friction on the ramrod.

Curt