What became of the millions of civil war rifle-muskets?

[beyu]

Many just rusted away in old barns and abandoned sheds.

 

[Stantheman86]

You gotta figure , there were 12 contractors cranking out 1861 Springfields , plus the US and CS were buying anything that went bang from England and Europe.......weapons were all over the place......

Then, 1865, the war is over......now the US has now obsolete front loading rifles and muskets everywhere....by 1865 they were obsolete junk and we socked them away in warehouses or sold them cheap to Foreign nations that couldn't afford better. The US Ordnance Dept couldn't move to Breechloaders fast enough....we converted as many obsolete rifle muskets as possible and all the 50-70 Trapdoors were cut down and relined 1863 Springfields that were never issued

There were a lot of oddball .58 cartridge conversions and Breechloaders developed from rifle-muskets in an effort to make some use of them. The .58 Roberts conversion rifles were used by the SC State Guard until the Krag started coming out.

I know the army of Yemen used P53 Enfields for their involvement in WWI....I wonder if any were Civil War surplus or if they bought them from England?

 

[Steveoko922]

Well at least one of them was made into a 50-70 1866 allen trapdoor marked to the 18th ID...hanging on my wall. Aparently the early trapdoors were a common cheap surplus rifles seen in the west in the hands of settlers and indians.

 

[Muley Gil]

A bunch of Springfield rifle muskets were cut down for use as drill rifles in the numerous military schools that popped up after the War of Northern Aggression. N-SSA skirmishers refer to these as "artillery rifles", but there is no reference to there being any such rifle being manufactured for the Union Army.

 

[jd945043]

Many were sold off as surplus to be sold very cheaply, much as Mausers, Springfields, etc. were....the diff. is that at the end of the war they were rapidly becoming obsolete. They were frequently bought as a very inexpensive all purpose gun, going duty as a shotgun, varmint gun, barn gun etc. and were very hard used. Many scrapped, etc. There were alot of them out there, but were considered of little worth and as all tools, once worn out, discarded. Luckily my granfather found a nice example of an 1863 springfield in the local hardware store for about ten bucks, and I own it now.

Boy you got ripped off. Cook hardware store had them for 7.50 when I was a kid. It's still puffing smoke after All the years.

 

[Daveboone]

uh....it did come with the original bayonette,scabbard and tompion....but Granpa wasnt much of "dealer".

 

[mkabe]

When I was in high school the farmhouse down the road had an 1863 Springfield hung over the fireplace mantle. I thought it beautiful, even more so than the girls in my class even though my teenage hormones were raging.
My dad brought a German K98 Mauser back from Europe after WWII, It was the first centerfire rifle I ever shot. I bought 100 rounds of surplus 7.92X57 FMJ steel core ammo at a pawnshop for very little and pulling my face back as far as I could yanked the trigger as I was afraid it might come apart. I didn’t and I shot through a couple hundred rounds with it damaging my hearing in the process. It a wonder I survived my youth. Still have the rifle!

 

[Kabulrocks]

In 1963 I was involved in dimilling about 20 tons of surplus M-3 .45 cal. grease guns, United Defense sub machine guns, air crew .38 cal handguns and thousands of 50cal and 20 mm barrels. This was at Warner Robbins AF base in Georgia

On my first deployment to Afghanistan, I saw one of the policemen in Kabul with a well-worn M-3 slung around his neck. That was 2002 or 3.

 

[Tanglefoot]

When I was about 14, I came across a Springfield Trapdoor in a country gas station/grocery/general store. I traded a single barrel shotgun for it and the owner threw in the 6 cartridges he had for it too. I rode home with it across the handlebars of my bike, but it was only a few miles. Turned out to be an Infantry model rifled musket that had been shortened to carbine length by a previous owner and the sights replaced with home-made. Still shoots pretty well. My buddy and I bought WWII surplus Kar-98's from a country "dealer" for $20 each after test firing them out back on the "dealer's" farm. When I was in college the local Five-and-Dime had a rack of Enfields, Springfields, M-1 Carbines, and Kar-98's plus a few Japanese Arisakas by the registers at bargain prices too. And when I was on a job in western Pennsylvania a few years back, I happened into a roadside restaurant that had antique rifles, muskets, and handguns on display --- bolted to the wall of the bar --- sometimes by driving the bolt through the stocks. Gave me the colliwobbles to see original Pennsylvania flintlocks with lag bolts driven through the buttstocks!! <shudder>

 

[RAEDWALD]

You gotta figure , there were 12 contractors cranking out 1861 Springfields , plus the US and CS were buying anything that went bang from England and Europe.......weapons were all over the place......

Then, 1865, the war is over......now the US has now obsolete front loading rifles and muskets everywhere....by 1865 they were obsolete junk and we socked them away in warehouses or sold them cheap to Foreign nations that couldn't afford better. The US Ordnance Dept couldn't move to Breechloaders fast enough....we converted as many obsolete rifle muskets as possible and all the 50-70 Trapdoors were cut down and relined 1863 Springfields that were never issued

There were a lot of oddball .58 cartridge conversions and Breechloaders developed from rifle-muskets in an effort to make some use of them. The .58 Roberts conversion rifles were used by the SC State Guard until the Krag started coming out.

I know the army of Yemen used P53 Enfields for their involvement in WWI....I wonder if any were Civil War surplus or if they bought them from England?

These, and a few hundred thousand others, were sold from the USA to the Ottoman government for conversion to breechloaders. Some in Belgium and some in Turkey. Both by the Snider and the very similar Polivache systems. Enfields and Springfields. These were indeed still serving the Ottoman army in Yemen in the First World War.

 

[Stantheman86]

A bunch of Springfield rifle muskets were cut down for use as drill rifles in the numerous military schools that popped up after the War of Northern Aggression. N-SSA skirmishers refer to these as "artillery rifles", but there is no reference to there being any such rifle being manufactured for the Union Army.

I have a Krag that was cut to the exact length of an 03 Springfield but it was neatly and professionally done to maintain the "military rifle" profile to be a Drill rifle in the 20s-30's when Krags were long obsolete and were being given away by the Govt

It wasn't long ago you could get $350 Garands from the CMP . It wasn't until the last 10-15 years or so that any gun that was "old" suddenly became worth $1000+

 

[fgd135]

I suggest anyone seriously interested in the actual post-war disposition of civil war rifle muskets pick up a copy of "Civil War Guns" by Wm. B. Edwards, published in 1962 by Stackpole Books, and read Chapter 33, "What happened to the guns, post war".
This scholarly work will answer most of your questions and wild speculations. Includes lists of gov't sales of hundreds of thousands of rifle muskets and other small arms, ammunition, sabers, Gatlings, artillery, you name it. Typical bids included 200-250K rifle muskets at a time. Half a million rifle muskets were sold directly and indirectly to France for the Franco Prussian War. Also it's noted that 100K Springfield rifle muskets sold to France were captured by the Germans and resold to Turkey, and details sales to surplus dealers, such as Hartley.
The very next chapter details the story of Francis Bannerman, who resold surplus all over the world, and famously converted rifle muskets into "Quaker guns" with wooden barrels, bored out thousands into shotguns, and even "converted 50K Colt rifle muskets into flintlock shotguns for the African trade". Yowza!
Read it if you can, the book's out of print, but might be available in a library system.

 

[Sutallee]

I suggest anyone seriously interested in the actual post-war disposition of civil war rifle muskets pick up a copy of "Civil War Guns" by Wm. B. Edwards, published in 1962 by Stackpole Books, and read Chapter 33, "What happened to the guns, post war".
This scholarly work will answer most of your questions and wild speculations. Includes lists of gov't sales of hundreds of thousands of rifle muskets and other small arms, ammunition, sabers, Gatlings, artillery, you name it. Typical bids included 200-250K rifle muskets at a time. Half a million rifle muskets were sold directly and indirectly to France for the Franco Prussian War. Also it's noted that 100K Springfield rifle muskets sold to France were captured by the Germans and resold to Turkey, and details sales to surplus dealers, such as Hartley.
The very next chapter details the story of Francis Bannerman, who resold surplus all over the world, and famously converted rifle muskets into "Quaker guns" with wooden barrels, bored out thousands into shotguns, and even "converted 50K Colt rifle muskets into flintlock shotguns for the African trade". Yowza!
Read it if you can, the book's out of print, but might be available in a library system.

I grew up a few miles from Kennesaw Mountain. The Western and Atlantic Railroad curls around the eastern edge of the battlefield. Word among the local families is that, after the battle, many railcars full of all kinds of scrap metal were gathered by the locals and shipped up north. For a long time, saw millers had to be careful about harvesting timber from this area because it was often full of bullets and shrapnel. Even today, there are treetops on the battlefield that were mangled by artillery shells.