new member with a question

[moosedog]

Hello. Nice site you folks have here. I'm from SE Michigan.
I was referred here by Muley Gil, whom I know for many years from the S&W Forum.
I am looking at this rifle which is an original Colt/Springfield 1861 (1863 on the lock) and has the three bands, sling and ramrod, 40 inch barrel and nice condition smooth bore. I would be buying it from a friend who I have done business with for years so I am not suspicious, just wonder if his asking price is correct. He wants $1600 for it. I does not appear to have any military cartouches on it. Your input is appreciated as I am in the dark on Civil War muskets.
For some reason I cannot post pictures, probably because I just signed up. Others who have seen it say it is between NRA antique VG to excellent condition.

[C.W. Artillery]

13 May 2017

Good morning "Moose Dog" and a hardy welcome to the N-SSA web forum. I'm glad you found your way here and hope it turns out to be a pleasant visit for you.

Hello. Nice site you folks have here. I'm from SE Michigan.

There is a fine gentleman named Bruce Cobb who lives out your way who's presence has graced these pages for many, many years. Perhaps he will take note of your above request and offer you some of his expert advice regarding your contemplated future purchase. Bruce is most knowledgeable in the subject matter.

There is much information available regarding the value of antique firearms from several or more sources. The predominant element to consider in a contemplated purchase is the originality of the individual firearm. That is, is it 100 per-cent armory manufactured ? Or, has it been added to / altered with non-original components after the piece was shipped from the armory.

Best wishes,

Webb

First Maine H.A. (retired)

.

[Lou Lou Lou]

Wait for John No;;and or one of the more knowledgeable to respond. I was surprised it is a smoothbore. But I don't have the requisite expertise.

[Lou Lou Lou]

Somehow Holland became No---

[RaiderANV]

Without providing pictures it's to hard to say on price. If you type "Colt Special Musket sale" in your browser you will find a couple dozen of them listed for sale and several that have sold. This way you can match the condition of your gun to those offered to get a better feel for the price. The musket did not leave the factory with a smoothbore barrel. It has been reamed out. This hurts the value some. If the sling is original that helps the value making up for the barrel.

[Southron Sr.]

First and foremost...are you really sure that it is a Smoothbore?

Years ago I owned an original Springfield 1861 that someone had taken a stone or perhaps a reamer and enlarged the bore of the last six inches of the barrel. This is known as "Counterboring" and was done so soldiers could reload faster in combat. Hence, I would suggest that you make sure that the musket is unloaded (many originals are found in a loaded condition!) then shine a light down the barrel to see IF there are any traces of rifling further down in the barrel.

Following the end of The War of Northern Aggression in 1865, Uncle Sam was left with the largest collection of obsolete, muzzleloading military arms on the face of the earth. So, for the next 50 or so years, the Ordnance Department would conduct public auctions of these surplus, obsolete arms where they were literally sold for "pennies on the dollar."

Commercial surplus dealers such as Bannerman, Stokes Kirk and others purchased these arms very cheaply and often modified them to make them more attractive to their retail customers. It was fairly common to take a .58 caliber rifle-musket and bore out the rifling so the arm could be sold as a "Shotgun," and arm that was in high demand in the post-war era for bird, squirrel and rabbit hunting.

NO inspection marks on the arm?

During the war, the Ordnance Department stationed trained "Inspectors" at all the plants that had contracts to produce arms for the Ordnance Department. These Inspectors were provided with metal and wood stamps AND WHEN A PIECE OR ARM PASSED THEIR INSPECTION, THEY WERE STAMPED.Many parts and arms DID NOT pass inspection either were not stamped at all or were stamped with a "C" which stood for "Condemned." The manufacturer would often sell these inferior arms to the individual states to recoup their losses they would otherwise have on the arms that did not pass inspection and accepted by the Ordnance Department.

The "Good News" is that IF you buy the arm and wish to restore it to a Minie Rifle Musket, then you can get Danny Whitacre to install a rifled liner in your barrel:

http://www.whitacresmachineshop.com/

This is the "best of both worlds" because you have an original arm that has a "mint" condition bore to provide the ultimate accuracy.

Another well known gunsmith that installs rifled liners is Bobby Hoyt, but I don't think he has a website.

Good Luck with whatever you decide to do.

[moosedog]

I'm sorry, I misunderstood the seller, it is rifled an supposedly in nice condition. I will be going later this week or next to see it in person.

[Maillemaker]

In my opinion, the easiest way to distribute pictures online is to post them to www.imgur.com and then copy-paste the links to the pictures (or album of pictures) to whatever forums or emails you wish to distribute them in.

This avoids all the little idiosyncrasies of all the different online bulletin board systems. Some systems, for example, re-size the images. By providing links, people can see them in their original size and resolution.

The nice thing about imgur is it is free and you don't even have to create an account or sign in to use it.

Steve