Smith Carbines?

Has anyone ever owned, fired, or heard of a Smith carbine?


These were a popular cavalry carbine around the time of the Civil War. Pietta makes a repro that gets good remarks.

Thoughts?

Smiths, original and repro, are probably the most popular carbines on the line in the N-SSA. The Pietta is a fine piece but does require a little tweaking followed by load development to get the most out of it. I've never shot one as I have a Shilo Sharps and an original Maynard but we have a number of them on our team. I have a friend who is an excelent shot and also manufactures top quality replacement Maynard barrels and his match carbine is a Smith because he feels Maynards are too small and light to shoot accuratly.

I have an original Smith that I shoot occasionally. Era's gone makes a good mold for the bullets. It is a fun shooter, easy to load for with the rubber case. Mine shoots pretty well. but the front sight is either worn down or filed down so much that it is a little tough to aim. Replacement sights are available but I hate to mess with the original. If you get a used Pietta be a little careful, some of the earlier ones were improperly rifled and did not shoot well. This problem was later corrected and the newer ones are better.

Sounds good, I’d be getting a new Pietta. Are the Pietta close in look and feel to the real ones, or are they a poor copy (looks wise, not necessarily function wise) like so many of the Italian guns?

I've only handled one Pietta, but that one seemed to be pretty good.

Piettas are a very close copy and are finished well. Some of the early ones came with the barrel rifled backwards, the bore was larger at the muzzle than the breech and they did not shoot good. Navy Arms became aware and warrantied any that were brought back and sold off the remaining ones cheap. You could buy one and have Hoyt line it for less total than retail and have a great shooter. It's quite possible some of the unaltered/repaired ones are still out there but that was years ago with the first run. You might want to check the fit of the wrist to action and glass bed that area. A teammate had a fair size chip break out there from recoil and a poor fitup.

hawkeye2 said:

Piettas are a very close copy. Some of the early ones came with the barrel rifled backwards, the bore was larger at the muzzle than the breech and they did not shoot good. Navy Arms became aware and warrantied any that were brought back and sold off the remaining ones cheap. You could buy one and have Hoyt line it for less total than retail and have a great shooter. It's quite possible some of the unaltered/repaired ones are still out there but that was years ago with the first run.

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Very cool. So current models have good bores? I thought of getting an original, but I plan to plink and hunt with it in the wilderness and shoot it a lot, and would fear damaging a historic original.

Anyone else shooting a Smith?

No, but the local shop had the 20g version for ages and I wanted it bad but they were asking way to much!

Actually, I haven't owned or fired one, but I have done trigger jobs on four to five dozen Originals and Repro's over the years. This along with soldering taller front sight blades and fitting larger receiver pivots to tighten up them up, as well as some other repair work.

Gus.

Artificer said:

Actually, I haven't owned or fired one, but I have done trigger jobs on four to five dozen Originals and Repro's over the years. This along with soldering taller front sight blades and fitting larger receiver pivots to tighten up them up, as well as some other repair work.

Gus.

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From your recollections, did the repros seem to differ a lot in looks and construction from the originals? Or where they a spitting image? Or somewhere in between?

Smokey Plainsman said:

Anyone else shooting a Smith?

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I had an opportunity to pick up a used one, but I'm not into CW rifles, per se, and I checked and can't use it to hunt in my state, so I passed on the opportunity. I knew a CW buff and so let him know of the bargain and he snapped it up.

LD

Smokey Plainsman said:

From your recollections, did the repros seem to differ a lot in looks and construction from the originals? Or where they a spitting image? Or somewhere in between?

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Smokey,

A general true statement is that NONE of the modern replica's of UnCivil War firearms is/are as good in quality as the originals, with the notable exception that the Real Parker Hale Enfields were as good or better in quality than the originals.

When I worked on original and repro Smith's from the 80's to early 2,000's, the only repro's were from Navy Arms, though I don't remember what company in Italy made them. There were a LOT of problems with those, but I want to make it clear I don't know if the current batch made by Pietta are like that.

You may not know this, but the Original Smith's were designed with an EXTREMELY HEAVY Trigger Pull Weight of at least 18 pounds to more in the range of 20 to 24 pounds. I think this was as a safety factor for combat use, but I cannot document that. The Navy Arms Repro's went as high as 26 to 28 pound trigger pulls. BTW, that is no exaggeration. I checked some of them with Trigger Pull Weights we used in the Military, just to see really how heavy the trigger pulls actually went. Of course I used an Official Set of NRA approved trigger pull weights when I did trigger jobs at the NSSA Spring and Fall National Championships and those Trigger Pull Weights were also checked/approved at Camp Perry at the National Matches.

NSSA Regulations state the minimum Trigger Pull weight for most "Long Arms and Carbines" is 3 pounds, though most times we set them up at 3 1/2 pounds to ensure they would not "go light" in use. That is extremely difficult to do with an Original Smith, but was almost impossible with the Navy Arms Smith's because the parts were not as good quality in fit and heat treatment. I was happy to get a NA Smith down to around 4 to 4 1/2 pounds with a good "break" or feel of the trigger release.

This plus the fact that it takes between 2 to 3 times as long to do a good Trigger Job on any Smith Carbine compared to Rifle Muskets. This because you have to disassemble the whole receiver and butt stock to work the parts and then put them all back together to check the trigger pulls. It is so time consuming, I was the only gunsmith who would do trigger jobs on them at the NSSA Spring and Fall National Championships, though the Great Guys at the "Gator Den" did some other kinds of work on them at the Nationals and I bought a lot of Smith Parts from them over the years to work the guns.

Gus

Artificer said:

When I worked on original and repro Smith's from the 80's to early 2,000's, the only repro's were from Navy Arms, though I don't remember what company in Italy made them.

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Industria Armi Bresicane (I.A.B) or Pietta maybe?

Carbon 6 said:

Industria Armi Bresicane (I.A.B) or Pietta maybe?

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Actually since Navy Arms was then the only source for the Repro Italian Smith's, I never bothered checking, so I can't say.

What I can say about those guns was Bobby Hoyt did a bang up business relining many of the barrels. For a while they had a tiny clean out screw that kept coming loose, though they came out with a larger one in a couple/few years. Parts were "looser" in tolerance and not as well heat treated as the Original Smiths, etc., etc.

Gus

I shoot an Erma Gallagher that rivals my original 1863 Sharps(converted to .50-70) for solid construction. Bobby Hoyt relined it to the correct .50 cal. and it's a tack driver.

gemmer said:

I shoot an Erma Gallagher that rivals my original 1863 Sharps(converted to .50-70) for solid construction. Bobby Hoyt relined it to the correct .50 cal. and it's a tack driver.

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Interesting!! I hear those are a nice repro. Wish we could get more/different ACW carbines, but alas.

Romano makes a repro Tarpley carbine and some others but you'll pay pretty big $$$ for them. But, likely as close as you'll get to the real thing without shooting an irreplaceable original.

A Tarpley? What a sweet looking gun! Wonder how much Romano charges?

Smokey Plainsman said:

A Tarpley? What a sweet looking gun! Wonder how much Romano charges?

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$7995.00