fayetteville rifle spec sheet

[robmeeks]

Hello all, I am looking for the spec sheet for the Fayetteville Rifle IV, been looking though the forms and no luck.

Thanks
Robbie

[lmcmahon]

Spec. Sheets are not on website. Contact John Holland, SAC Chairman.

[MarkTK36thIL]

Out of curiosity, what are the ideas behind not putting the spec sheets on the website?

[Charlie Hahn]

PM sent with SAC sheet

[John Holland]

Mark, et al - In the early days of the Small Arms Committee there were no inspection sheets. Each arm that was required to be inspected was done on a blank sheet of paper using an inspection manual that was an internal document, only. The dimensions were in fractions, with +/- allowances. To make it worse, the arms were measured from the butt forward, AND from the muzzle backwards. This created so much compound error that many arms could not pass inspection.

Enter the "Small Arms Inspection Sheets". These sheets were originally created for the Small Arms Committee members to use in the inspection process for custom builds, or restored originals, which were to be used in the N-SSA's competitive matches. Many of these inspection sheets are still in a rather cryptic format designed for the use of the Small Arms Committee members who knew what the arms were and looked like before they ever saw them. Very simply, the Inspectors for whom the sheets were designed for were arms students. The competitors building arms to use in the N-SSA began to ask for copies of the sheets so they could "build to spec". It very quickly became painfully apparent that most people knew very little about the specifics of Civil War arms. At that point a project was begun to revamp the sheets in an attempt to make them more "user friendly" for people who didn't understand Civil War arms in general. I say this with no offense to anyone because the number of real arms students in the N-SSA is far outweighed by those who just want something to shoot that will pass inspection.

There are now nearly 150 Small Arms inspection sheets covering a vast array of arms used in the Civil War. Therefore, the project to rework all of these sheets is labor intensive in order to have them include the specific details of what is required for each arm. As an example a sheet read, "Rear Sight - 1855 Rifle Musket Long Range", had to be changed to include the sidewall graduations of "1,2,3,4" because of the ever increasing number of people who were asking "Which sight is that?" The inspection sheets have been created on an "as-needed" basis, some of which have only been used for one submittal. This collection of inspection sheets by no means covers all of the arms used in the Civil War! In the event you are curious where the dimensions as shown on the inspection sheets come from, they are taken from original arms in a myriad of private collections and for which I profusely thank those collectors who have opened their collections to us in order to gather the most accurate data possible.

The Small Arms Committee has every intention of making the Inspection Sheets available on the N-SSA website, but at this time it is still a "Work in progress". For the membership, use my email address as published in the "Skirmish Line" magazine. For non-members send me a PM indicating the sheet, or sheets, you desire, including your email address so I can send you the desired sheets as attachments.

John Holland
Small Arms Staff Officer
Small Arms Committee

[MarkTK36thIL]

Thank you for the thorough explanation. There were a time or two when I pondered, "I wonder if I could recreate this rifle...."

[Hal]

Thank you, John, for the detailed explanation. And thank you for what you do.