Originally Posted by
jek279
Our local museum has a Spencer rifle in what looks to be original. The only thing that confuses me is the outside barrel diameter. It looks like this barrel is a bull barrel. About 1 inch diameter. I wasn't sure if they had barrels that thick at the muzzle. How many barrel sizes were there on this gun?
It is not uncommon to find Spencer Rifles that have been cut-down to carbine length, which when the full-length 30-inch barrel is cut off to make a 20-inch carbine barrel, the resulting muzzle diameter is about 0.815-inches. The M1860 Spencer Rifle that I shoot was indeed one which had been cut to carbine length, and Larry Romano assisted me in restoring it to full length by making me a new 30-inch barrel. Although these were merely my "sighting" shots and not for score, my first three shots at 50 yards during individuals at the National were two 10s an inch apart, and an X between them... all in about a one inch group.
One interesting tidbit for those looking to own either the regulation rifle or sporting rifle, and attempting to make one out of the other. Some months ago, I acquired a receiver for one of the sporting rifles and had tried to thread on the cut-down barrel noted above, and could not get it to fit. The threaded breech diameter was much smaller, and there was no way to make the male threads larger or the female threads smaller. The two simply would not fit together. Later, I spoke with the person who had purchased the original barrel that went with my receiver, and he had similarly found that the threads were too large in diameter to fit his military receiver. Once having acquired the original 30-inch round barrel for my receiver, I had no problem with the fit, and was able to screw the barrel up to within a quarter turn of the factory alignment. So if anyone acquires either an original barrel for one of the sporting rifles, or the receiver, and finds the two will not mate up with their intended military counterpart, this appears to have been done purposefully by the factory to prevent the two versions from being fully-interchangeable.
First Cousin (7 times removed) to Brigadier General Stand Watie (1806-1871), CSA
1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles | Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation 1862-66
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