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Re: Loyalist Arms 1854 Lorenz Is here!
James
I am familiar with the anecdote you reference and I have always wondered from the description of the 104th OVIs weapons if those could have been old Austrian smoothbore tubelock muskets from the 1840s...the use of the word "tube" rather than "cone" is an odd choice of words. There is a picture of an Austrian tubelock in "Echoes of Glory" and those were big old junkers. I could easily see those being decrepit. Also the Lorenz was often referred to as an "Austrian rifle", rather than as a "musket". The term "musket" was understood at the time to mean "smoothbore musket". Not always in a soldier's diary or letter, but in an officer's descriptive account of issued ordnance...anyway, it is just a thought. The M-1854s weren't cream puffs but they weren't likely to be 1/3 of the lot defective.
Leander Stillwell of the 61st Illinois was delighted with his M-1854 Lorenz which he termed "a wicked (meaning real good) shooter", but opinions seem to have varied on the Lorenz. Overall, I find them to be on the crude side, an older mostly obsolete European design that does not hold a candle to the P-53. The lock function is especially crude. It has the old style "hook" type lock (no tumbler link), a long hammer throw, an old style lock plate etc. However, the M-1854 Lorenz clearly has its fans...look at the enthusiasm for them in the posts here. Soldiers were well known to drop the Lorenz and pick up US rifle-muskets or Enfields on the battlefield, and I can understand it.
James
I am familiar with the anecdote you reference and I have always wondered from the description of the 104th OVIs weapons if those could have been old Austrian smoothbore tubelock muskets from the 1840s...the use of the word "tube" rather than "cone" is an odd choice of words. There is a picture of an Austrian tubelock in "Echoes of Glory" and those were big old junkers. I could easily see those being decrepit. Also the Lorenz was often referred to as an "Austrian rifle", rather than as a "musket". The term "musket" was understood at the time to mean "smoothbore musket". Not always in a soldier's diary or letter, but in an officer's descriptive account of issued ordnance...anyway, it is just a thought. The M-1854s weren't cream puffs but they weren't likely to be 1/3 of the lot defective.
Leander Stillwell of the 61st Illinois was delighted with his M-1854 Lorenz which he termed "a wicked (meaning real good) shooter", but opinions seem to have varied on the Lorenz. Overall, I find them to be on the crude side, an older mostly obsolete European design that does not hold a candle to the P-53. The lock function is especially crude. It has the old style "hook" type lock (no tumbler link), a long hammer throw, an old style lock plate etc. However, the M-1854 Lorenz clearly has its fans...look at the enthusiasm for them in the posts here. Soldiers were well known to drop the Lorenz and pick up US rifle-muskets or Enfields on the battlefield, and I can understand it.
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