Factory Defarbed Armisport?

[Mikec71]

Has anyone ever heard of this?

Thanks

Mike Crane

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Factory Defarbed Armisport?

Hallo!

Yes, Chiappa/Armi Sport offers several of their CW line as "Factory 'De-farbed'" versions.

For example:

'Item Number: 910-047 The Civil War Commemorative Springfield 1861 manufactured by Armi Sport Chiappa is very close to the original musket and has historically correct markings"

I have not (yet) seen or handled one of the "line' to comment on as what is "different" than the standard product. A WAG is that they just put the modern barrel stampingsunder the barrel instead of on the top and everything else remains the same.

Curt

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Factory Defarbed Armisport?

I have seen them. This is a very long and humorous story but the thrust of it is that Todd Watts helped Chiappa pro bono on this matter. He even sent them one of their Enfields he had defarbed to copy mostly out of frustration because the changes they had made over time were almost impossible to remedy during de-farbing. This was going on right after Pedersoli produced their own Enfield reproduction, which is quite good in my opinion. In the interest of full disclosure, Pedersoli used as a reference guide "The Civil War Musket: A Handbook for Historical Accuracy" book which I wrote, and also paid me as a consultant during the design phase. So take my enthusiasm for the Pedersoli with a grain of salt. I had a little bet going on the side with Todd Watts about how Armi Chiappa would do compared to the Pedersoli, which I won after Watts got to see what Armi Chiappa ended up doing with his recommendations.

Point being, in both cases but particularly with Armi Chiappa...something got lost in the translation when it came to the actual production or manufacturing phase. Chiappa's first attempt at a "150th series" of muskets was to improve their already very good US 1842 which didn't require much more than relocating the modern markings and a better shaped ramrod. The Enfield needed a lot more historical feature improvement and did not get it at all, despite having a Todd Watts defarb right in hand. The end result was badly botched in a variety of ways. Their lack of understanding is highlighted for the 150th anniversary US 1861 as follows. Go to the link on the Armi Chiappa website (http://www.chiappafirearms.com/product/2612). The item they have pictured as their defarbed US 1861 is actually their US 1842. Their US 1861 reproduction is even more hopeless than their Enfield, and moving the markings is not doing very much to address it, but that's all they did.

My favorite "Chiappa-ism" is that they list a "Defarbed" model and their other version as "Farbed." I am not making any of this up.