I forget the exact number but many of the early Navy rifles were fitted with barrels having 3-groove rifling because there were some 8,000 such barrels had been manufactured before the 5-groove rifling was adopted, and rather than the government throwing the 3-groove barrels away, they were mated up to the new pattern brass-mounted Navy rifle until the stock was exhausted. The earlier regulation pattern P/56 Army rifles were iron-mounted, but we find almost as many non-regulation pattern with brass-mountings or mixed mountings that were shipped to his country.
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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