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Given the interest in Spencer Rifles for Bummers 2009 I'd thought I'd offer some of my experience with them for the benefit of those considering purchasing one.
I purchased a rifle in 56-50 from Taylors in the summer of 2007 and ended up finding a good deal on a carbine also in 56-50 early last spring. I'm mainly using them for live firing but have used them with blanks at living history type events as well. It makes for a good talk on the evolution of firearms during the mid 19th century beginning with my Hall flintlock and ending with the Spencer.
The over all fit and finish is quite good as it should be given the price. Don't expect Holland & Holland type work but, they are still works of art. The current version of the rifle does not also have the calvary sling bar on the left side of the action. The first rifles shipped over were built on carbine receivers for some reason but, this has since been corrected. Oh, at least in my experience, only the carbine comes with the foam lined hard case. My rifle came in a plain cardboard box. I was a bit disappointed but, hard cases can be had for around $30.
A few items of note.
1. Out of box trigger pulls tend to range from heavy to very heavy. This is not really an issue with blanks but, makes trying to shoot for group difficult. The Spencer uses a back action lock with one half of the mainspring working as the sear spring. The trigger on my rifle was tolerable out of box but on the carbine I had to thin down the sear portion of the spring with a grinding wheel and some emery cloth in order to get a trigger pull that I could live with.
2. The screws holding the bridle to the lock plate and the screws holding the percussion plate (part on the breechblock that the hammer strikes) tend to work themselves loose during use. Loose bridle screws will lead to the hammer striking either the breechblock itself or the receiver. Loose percussion plate screws cause light firing pin strikes leading to misfires. I secured these screws on my Spencers with the removeable version of locktite.
3. A projection on the front of the trigger plate serves as a stop for when you open the action. Don't do as I did once trying to fire as fast as I could and open the action so forcefully that you pull the guts right out of your Spencer. The Spencer feeds best when operated briskly just don't get carried away with it.
4. The notch in the cast rear sight is so small as to be useless. Expect to have to open it up a bit with a needle fire if you wish to do much live firing.
Ammo:
Factory ammo is expensive so you might as well learn to reload for the Spencer. Reloading is an art in and of itself. This should at least give anyone interested something to go on. I've been using the lyman #515213 mould sized down to .512" You can order a custom .512 sizing die from Lee for around $30. The die will mount in any reloading press. Just lube the bullets then run them through the die. A regular lube and bullet sizing press would work faster but then you are out $140 or so for the lubesizer plus another $40 for the .512 die and top punch to go with it. I'm using the Lyman .56-50 Spencer dies.
The Starline brass is costly but will last a long time if you take proper care of it. Cases need to be washed right after use if fired with blackpowder or a substitute such as Pyrodex which is also corrosive. I anneal the necks of my cases about every three shots to prevent them from splitting to due to work hardening. Doing this I still have 98 out of the 100 cases bought with the rifle. One was lost in some grass and the other one got stepped on. I figure I've gotten at least 7 or 8 shots per case by now.
The Spencers are a bit picky about overall cartridge length for reliable operation. Anything from 1.555 to 1.700 seems to work ok in my guns. I've been loading my live rounds to around 1.655. Given the small size of the case and the need for a proper overall length powder capacity is limited to around 30-40 grains of blackpowder or one of the substitutes by volume. I never had great luck with Goex blackpowder in my rifle so have been generally using Pyrodex RS with much better results. No, its not period but, this is not an issue out at the range shooting for my own pleasure and it has the advantages of being far easier to find and can be had for cheap if I watch for sales right after muzzle loader season. I'm sure a bullet and blackpowder combination that would give me the accuracy desired could be found but, for now I'm sticking with what does work for me vs sending more powder and lead down range in vain.
Blanks.
The plastic cases loaded with the .209 primers work ok. Not great but, ok. I've loaded mine with 5 grains of 3fffg black powder and a shot gun primer. They make more noise than you would expect. There simply is no cheap and easy way to obtain loud .56-50 blanks that I know of. The heads do occasionally get ripped off these so it helps to have someone with a muzzleloader in the ranks near by that you can borrow a ram rod from if needed. I have had to chuck the cases nose first in a cordless drill and use a file to bevel the rim slightly to get the magazine tube to slide over them.
I also learned how to make brass blanks from a forum member back when I first bought the rifle. This involves using .45-70 brass and a set of 10mm pistol dies. These are much louder being loaded with around 20 grains of powder but if you ask me are too much work to make and risk loosing assuming you want 100+ to take into a "fight". I don't mind using them for demonstrations where the number of rounds fired is fairly small and the brass can be easily picked up for cleaning and reuse. Oh and .45-70 brass runs around $35/50 and I ruined a good number of cases before I got one that would generally feed ok. Being handmade with somewhat improvised equipment consistency is hard to acheive with these leading to jambs. With the .45-70 brass blanks I've found that the best thing to do is to remove the spring and follower from the magazine tube and just tilt the muzzle down slightly and let gravity carry the cartridges from the magazine to where the breechblock can pick them up as it is being closed.
I do not have any experience with the commerically available .56-50 brass blanks.
The website for all things Spencer. Spencer Shooters Societyhttp://www.cascity.com/forumhall/ind...oard,35.0.html
I hope I have not put anyone off from purchasing a Spencer. I've had great fun with mine. I just want anyone considering paying $1000+ for a rifle or carbine to have an idea of what they are getting into especially if their only prior experience with Civil War era firearms has been with a musket or rifle musket.
Stephen Gresko
I purchased a rifle in 56-50 from Taylors in the summer of 2007 and ended up finding a good deal on a carbine also in 56-50 early last spring. I'm mainly using them for live firing but have used them with blanks at living history type events as well. It makes for a good talk on the evolution of firearms during the mid 19th century beginning with my Hall flintlock and ending with the Spencer.
The over all fit and finish is quite good as it should be given the price. Don't expect Holland & Holland type work but, they are still works of art. The current version of the rifle does not also have the calvary sling bar on the left side of the action. The first rifles shipped over were built on carbine receivers for some reason but, this has since been corrected. Oh, at least in my experience, only the carbine comes with the foam lined hard case. My rifle came in a plain cardboard box. I was a bit disappointed but, hard cases can be had for around $30.
A few items of note.
1. Out of box trigger pulls tend to range from heavy to very heavy. This is not really an issue with blanks but, makes trying to shoot for group difficult. The Spencer uses a back action lock with one half of the mainspring working as the sear spring. The trigger on my rifle was tolerable out of box but on the carbine I had to thin down the sear portion of the spring with a grinding wheel and some emery cloth in order to get a trigger pull that I could live with.
2. The screws holding the bridle to the lock plate and the screws holding the percussion plate (part on the breechblock that the hammer strikes) tend to work themselves loose during use. Loose bridle screws will lead to the hammer striking either the breechblock itself or the receiver. Loose percussion plate screws cause light firing pin strikes leading to misfires. I secured these screws on my Spencers with the removeable version of locktite.
3. A projection on the front of the trigger plate serves as a stop for when you open the action. Don't do as I did once trying to fire as fast as I could and open the action so forcefully that you pull the guts right out of your Spencer. The Spencer feeds best when operated briskly just don't get carried away with it.
4. The notch in the cast rear sight is so small as to be useless. Expect to have to open it up a bit with a needle fire if you wish to do much live firing.
Ammo:
Factory ammo is expensive so you might as well learn to reload for the Spencer. Reloading is an art in and of itself. This should at least give anyone interested something to go on. I've been using the lyman #515213 mould sized down to .512" You can order a custom .512 sizing die from Lee for around $30. The die will mount in any reloading press. Just lube the bullets then run them through the die. A regular lube and bullet sizing press would work faster but then you are out $140 or so for the lubesizer plus another $40 for the .512 die and top punch to go with it. I'm using the Lyman .56-50 Spencer dies.
The Starline brass is costly but will last a long time if you take proper care of it. Cases need to be washed right after use if fired with blackpowder or a substitute such as Pyrodex which is also corrosive. I anneal the necks of my cases about every three shots to prevent them from splitting to due to work hardening. Doing this I still have 98 out of the 100 cases bought with the rifle. One was lost in some grass and the other one got stepped on. I figure I've gotten at least 7 or 8 shots per case by now.
The Spencers are a bit picky about overall cartridge length for reliable operation. Anything from 1.555 to 1.700 seems to work ok in my guns. I've been loading my live rounds to around 1.655. Given the small size of the case and the need for a proper overall length powder capacity is limited to around 30-40 grains of blackpowder or one of the substitutes by volume. I never had great luck with Goex blackpowder in my rifle so have been generally using Pyrodex RS with much better results. No, its not period but, this is not an issue out at the range shooting for my own pleasure and it has the advantages of being far easier to find and can be had for cheap if I watch for sales right after muzzle loader season. I'm sure a bullet and blackpowder combination that would give me the accuracy desired could be found but, for now I'm sticking with what does work for me vs sending more powder and lead down range in vain.
Blanks.
The plastic cases loaded with the .209 primers work ok. Not great but, ok. I've loaded mine with 5 grains of 3fffg black powder and a shot gun primer. They make more noise than you would expect. There simply is no cheap and easy way to obtain loud .56-50 blanks that I know of. The heads do occasionally get ripped off these so it helps to have someone with a muzzleloader in the ranks near by that you can borrow a ram rod from if needed. I have had to chuck the cases nose first in a cordless drill and use a file to bevel the rim slightly to get the magazine tube to slide over them.
I also learned how to make brass blanks from a forum member back when I first bought the rifle. This involves using .45-70 brass and a set of 10mm pistol dies. These are much louder being loaded with around 20 grains of powder but if you ask me are too much work to make and risk loosing assuming you want 100+ to take into a "fight". I don't mind using them for demonstrations where the number of rounds fired is fairly small and the brass can be easily picked up for cleaning and reuse. Oh and .45-70 brass runs around $35/50 and I ruined a good number of cases before I got one that would generally feed ok. Being handmade with somewhat improvised equipment consistency is hard to acheive with these leading to jambs. With the .45-70 brass blanks I've found that the best thing to do is to remove the spring and follower from the magazine tube and just tilt the muzzle down slightly and let gravity carry the cartridges from the magazine to where the breechblock can pick them up as it is being closed.
I do not have any experience with the commerically available .56-50 brass blanks.
The website for all things Spencer. Spencer Shooters Societyhttp://www.cascity.com/forumhall/ind...oard,35.0.html
I hope I have not put anyone off from purchasing a Spencer. I've had great fun with mine. I just want anyone considering paying $1000+ for a rifle or carbine to have an idea of what they are getting into especially if their only prior experience with Civil War era firearms has been with a musket or rifle musket.
Stephen Gresko
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