Spencer rifle 1861

Cool rifle, tell us more about the center fire conversion. What brass and bullets do you use and I assume still black powder? What kind of velocities do you get?

Nice!

For good reason, tell us more. Please

In found one in the river when I was a kid, well what was left, dad sealed it with epoxy after we dried it out. Made a cool wood frame from a civil war crate, used for artillery shells.

Unfortunately the river reclaimed it in 2011 when I lost my house in the flooding.

One of my favorite historical repeating rifles! I've yet to fire one, original or repro, but I've a copy of Roy Marcot's book on Spencer Firearms and have read it a couple times.

Christopher Spencer was raised by a long-lived grandfather, and Spencer himself was 88 when he died in 1922. This meant the first-hand memories of his immediate family stretched from his grandfather's youth during the American Revolutionary War to the aviation experiences of Spencer's son. While Spencer had mixed success as a firearm designer, he made a tidy fortune later on from his automatic screw machine patent.

A buddy of mine used a Carbine supposedly brought home by great grand CSA from Chickamagua during the "the Wahr" to play "army" with in the 1960's.

I played with it every chance I got. They had a handful of rimfire cartridges for it and his Dad was always "going to" let us fire a shot but never got a Round Tuit.

-kBob

That's awesome.
I've always wanted to shoot one.

Dave DeLaurant said:

One of my favorite historical repeating rifles! I've yet to fire one, original or repro, but I've a copy of Roy Marcot's book on Spencer Firearms and have read it a couple times.

Christopher Spencer was raised by a long-lived grandfather, and Spencer himself was 88 when he died in 1922. This meant the first-hand memories of his immediate family stretched from his grandfather's youth during the American Revolutionary War to the aviation experiences of Spencer's son. While Spencer had mixed success as a firearm designer, he made a tidy fortune later on from his automatic screw machine patent.

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I love time lines like that. One of my favorites is while they were building the engineering marvel that would be called the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC, out west, Gen. Custer was still busy fighting Indians.

They started the bridge in 1869, it was completed in 1883. Custer was killed in 1876.

Unfortunately, his troop was not equipped with Spencers like the beautiful one in the original post..

Wasn't that the spencer that caused the 'Lightning at Hoover's Gap' ?

I played with the carbine of that model which was owned by the Mexican Horse bandit in California Juaquin Murieta. His relative sold his two fire arms and some other stuff to a local collector I knew in the 80s.It was well documented. If I lived in 1860s I would have wanted one! He also had a second Model Colt .44 Dragoon

snidervolley said:

Custer and his men at Gettysburg stop the confederate flanking move with these very rifles ! They where issued three bander rifles and there fire power stoped the flank

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According to one book I've read, no Union cavalry armed with Spencer carbines/rifles was ever overwhelmed by Confederate forces even when the Union was outnumbered by the Confederate force.

Confederate General "Fighting Joe" Wheeler has a home here in North Alabama. Circa 1991 I visited it and saw a collection of his uniforms, swords and militaria. Amongst these was a Spencer Carbine. I got to actually pick it up and examine it. It was in good shape for its age, but lacked it's follower. The caretaker mentioned they used to have ammunition for it but it had been stolen.

General Wheeler repatriated with the Union after the war and was with Teddy Rosevelt in the Cuban unpleasantness. There is today a dam on the Tennessee River, built by the TVA in the 1930s, named after him.

Love the history of the Spencer rifle.
When we vacationed a couple years ago in DC for the 4th of July weekend, I was very pleasantly surprised to see at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Spencer rifle that President Lincoln tested on the White House grounds.

Here is a pic I took.
It isn't a great one, because I just used my phone. I was like a kid. My wife nearly had to drag me away from it.

What is awful is that Custer's Seventh Cavalry Regiment WAS armed with Spencer Carbines up until 1875. Custer's Regiment fired more rounds in training than any Calvary or Infantry regiment in the US army in the two years before the Spencers were replaced. When the army took away the Spencers for some reason Custer stopped stressing individual marksmanship or even mechanical training.

He also got replacements practically right off the boat from mainly Ireland that did not speak English to any good degree in 1875 and a few other mainland Europeans the same way.

One wonders if the tales of the Greasy Grass might have been told different if Custer had fought that battle with his 1874 troops and carbines.

At one of the LDS historic sights in Southern Utah ( I believe called Cove Fort) I saw either a customized Spencer Carbine or one of the post war attempts at a sporting rifle on the mantle over a fire place. I wondered at the time if it might have been on the work bench of Jonathan or John Browning at some point. Looked sharp....and a tourist Identified it to his family as a Sharpes and I corrected him.

-kBob

Tommygunn said:

According to one book I've read, no Union cavalry armed with Spencer carbines/rifles was ever overwhelmed by Confederate forces even when the Union was outnumbered by the Confederate force.

Confederate General "Fighting Joe" Wheeler has a home here in North Alabama. Circa 1991 I visited it and saw a collection of his uniforms, swords and militaria. Amongst these was a Spencer Carbine. I got to actually pick it up and examine it. It was in good shape for its age, but lacked it's follower. The caretaker mentioned they used to have ammunition for it but it had been stolen.

General Wheeler repatriated with the Union after the war and was with Teddy Rosevelt in the Cuban unpleasantness. There is today a dam on the Tennessee River, built by the TVA in the 1930s, named after him.

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Ill bet the dam won't be for long ! Also the same loony left wants to bust out the damns , as they have done in Calif and Oregon and Washington to some degree. Fish before people after all

I for one am enjoying this thread...except for that horse.

-kBob

woops wrong file.

For Gordon... North Alabama (Huntsville) is the closest I ever had to a home town or state (lived there until I went into the service myself in 1968...). From what I remember of the folks there anyone wanting to re-name Wheeler Dam or Wheeler Wildlife Refuge will have a fight on their hands... But of course "re-naming" is a game they play in Washington... sad to say....

Tommygunn said:

According to one book I've read, no Union cavalry armed with Spencer carbines/rifles was ever overwhelmed by Confederate forces even when the Union was outnumbered by the Confederate force.

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Too much gunsmoke. Nobody could see anything after the Spencers fired.