Civil War foraging shotgun

[Nobade]

I have one of these, fairly well done. The rear sight hole was filled with a copper rivet, forend cut and a nice entry pipe added. Has a little shotgun bead on the muzzle. My dad and I fired it some about 50 years ago, and it didn't blow up. I will eventually give it a good inspection and come up with a good use for it. Did Bannerman's ever put any kind of marks on their conversions? It would be interesting to know how it came to be.

 

[hawkeye2]

No markings that I'm aware of and the US was sanded off the buttplate tang on mine, possibly so that farmer Green wouldn't be incarcerated for having stolen government property.

 

[toot]

BANNERMAN sure was the man!

 

[3 trees]

Is there any truth that Springfield made some shotguns taking game for feeding a Army? I have a Springfield lock stamped 1864 smoothbore no rear site no sign of having a rear site shorter barrel than rifle shorter stock.

I have a Harper’s Ferry modified the same way!

 

[JCKelly]

Grampa said he won this for .50 cents at a raffle. Bored out .58 musket barrel, back action lock. I unloaded it in 1955, nice fresh black powder & #6 shot. First muzzle-loader I ever shot.

 

[Bibs]

Thank you for responding.Yes whoever filled mine in did good job we can't see anything.But it has seen some use.. I agree the starving out and cutting off supplies was the war tactic

 

[sheriff john]

Gunshow stories are common. Some might even be true.

 

[ohio ramrod]

As they said in the sixties:" War is harmful to children and all other living things."'

 

[Loyalist Dave]

No truth at all, usually a story told by a seller at a gun show trying to palm off a well worn Bannerman conversion of a percussion Civil War rifle-musket. Springfield Armory did make forager's guns in the cartridge era. They were smoothbored trapdoors but never a percussion gun.

When I read the OP's post, I thought perhaps it was simply an 1842 Springfield musket which is a .69 smoothbore, and somebody had simply come up with a "cover story" for it. Made long before the ACW so never intended as a forager's gun. Then he posted a photo and you ID'd it as a converted rifled musket. Very cool.

LD

 

[Rató:rats]

This is Confederate cavalryman John Duponte of Dartmouth Alabama rocking a nice shotty and D guard Bowie. Maybe a so-called foraging gun?

 

[sheriff john]

I bought one of these today at a gunshow in St., Louis. Haven't really had a chance to examine it closely. No story background. Seller a nice young guy selling off inherited guns for his family. Mine has a short barrel, sorta crude front sight bead, and saddle ring. Unsure of bore diameter and other marks as condition of metal is pretty rough.

Handy little gun, tho'. Seller also had a break-action tear gas gun and a rough siongle barrel fowler with a cap box in the pistol grip cap - about the size of a nickel.