".69 Caliber rifle musket" Topic

Franz Siegal writes in his report about the action at Carthage, Missouri, (5 July 1861) that his troops had .69 caliber rifle muskets. What would those be?

Thanks,
Mark

second thing that comes up on google

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and if you trust wikipedia, it seems to have been as common as mud.

link

to summarise, looks like there was a model made, and later on the very common .69 musket was retro-rifled.

Pat

.69 caliber was a French caliber of musket during the Napoleonic Wars and before back into the 18th century. Early US arms were based on French arms until the American Civil War when rifle muskets were made in .58 caliber, I think.

I question the concept of retro-rifling unless you mean the smoothbore barrel was replaced by a rifled barrel. I would think (but not know) that a musket barrel could not be rifled or at least safely rifled. I think the barrel wall would be too thin on the musket.

As you can hopefully see, I read a lot but I do not consider myself a expert. Hopefully others will chime in with more information.

Craig

The 69 cal rifle was called "The pumpkin slinger", obviously because if the large bore size. The units armed with them (and there were many) loved them… apart from carrying the weight of the lead. :)

By the ACW rifle-musket referred to the length of the barrel, a rifle-musket was longer than a rifle, both of course had rifled barrels.

My brother-in-law has two Austrian made Garibaldi rifle-muskets of .70 caliber made in 1853 and '55 but he didn't know of any common rifle-muskets in .69 caliber.

The 69 cal SPringfield was a direct copy of the French 69 Cal Charleville Musket which is basically the "Brown Bess" of the French Army.

If I'm not mistaken the 1855 Springfield was a .58. What they are probably referring to is the 1842 Springfield which was a .69. Many of these were distributed to militia units untill late 1855. Most of these were smooth bore but some were rifled at the expense of the unit.

I'd guess it was the modified M1842 Springfield

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The rifled version of the M1842 Springfield makes good sense. I goofed on one point. It was actually Brig. Gen. Sweeny (Sigel's superior at that point) that mentioned the weapon. He also complained that he didn't have sufficient ammuntion for these rifles.

Mark

The .69 rifled-musket is a .69 musket that has been rifled post-production. They used the original barrel and not a new barrel.

These are the period terms, for those who are interested:

Musket, Rifle, Rifle-Musket, and Rifled-Musket.

The Musket is a smoothbore of martial length, with a bayonet, and could be of either flintlock or percussion ignition system. the brown bess, M1816 Springfield, and M1842 Springfield are examples of this.

The Rifle is of shorter length, and can have either a flintlock or percussion ignition system. It may have a bayonet, usually a long-blade or sabre bayonet. Examples are the Baker, the M1841 (Mississippi, Windsor, etc) the M1855 Long Range Rifle, etc.

The Rifle-Musket is a rifled weapon of martial length, with a percussion ignition system and, usually, a socket bayonet. Examples are the M1853 Enfield, and the M1855, M1861, M1864 Springfield, the Lorenz, etc.

The Rifled-Musket is a martial musket that has had the barrel rifled post-production. One example is the Remington conversion of the M1842. The lock was replaced with a Maynard Priming system, the barrel was rifled, and an adjustable ramp site (similar to that of the M1853 Enfield) was installed.

This latter weapon is of the type referred to by Siegal in his comments.

Respects,

Wow. Thanks TKindred. That's really useful information. Who knew to pay attention to one little added "d" to show that is a conversion?

Thanks!

Wow. Thanks TKindred. That's really useful information. Who knew to pay attention to one little added "d" to show that is a conversion?

Thanks!

took me a long time reading through the various manuals to understand it too. As much as anything else, the Civil War really was a time of transistion. Of uniforms, tactics, weapons, and understanding of the nature of combat.

I have a repro 69 Springfield with a number of original parts. Very fun toy to shoot. The guns were outdated (1842 design), but loved by the troops that received them. 1) you had the option of a buck and ball round that acted like a shot gun for nasty close in work. 2) The trigger guard is wider than the Enfield and later Springfields so it is easier to carry the weapon at shoulder arms (even though it is slightly heavier). 3) I have found that the gun isn't as prone to nipple fouling problems as is the 1861 Springfield model. 4) The rifled version has the best sight of any of the American muzzle loaders of the period.

a link where you can visually compare the typical American long arms: fcsutler.com/fcweapons.asp

EJ,

You're not saying that the .69 caliber M1842 rifled-musket was issued a buck and ball cartridge, are you? I would think that would eventually ruin the rifling.

Mark

Only the muskets were issued with Buck & Ball, or plain round ball cartridges. Rifle-muskets and Rifled-Muskets got expanding ball cartridges. The only exception to this was the M1854 Pistol, of .54 caliber. It received a round-ball cartridge throughout it's issue life.

Actually, there really wasn't that many of the rifled muskets. I believe in the 10 to 30 thousand range. However, they can fire the buck and ball without damage. I have done it on the repro and seen it done on a original. The rifling on the rifled 69 is extremely shallow, so no it would not damage the rifling. Truthfully, as soft as the lead is I doubt any period bullet could damage any of them. The problem would be the typical Minie ball problem of any period rifle. The base ring of a Minie ball can separate and get stuck in the base of the bore. The problem when it happens rarely makes the gun totally inoperable. It is mainly a safety hazard as one may not know it is there.

As to it never being done during the war, I can't prove a negative. On the rebel side in particular, I have read accounts (Mississippi) of regular rifles being loaded with stones, nails, and scrap pieces of lead.

I just started re-reading Bruce Catton's book "Mr. Lincoln's Army" and it talks about some union units down on the peninsula who were equipped with old 'Harper's Ferry' muskets that were rifled by putting a rifled liner tube down inside the regular barrel. They figured out there was a gap inside the barrel between the end of the tube and the bottom of the barrel that caused them to kick very hard. They solved this problem by hammering 2-3 dimes all the way down the barrel to fill the gap.