This is my fun for today in a most miserable day and what is going to be a Spiritual battle night.
As someone said they do not like being quoted here, I can not quote, but it came to my attention that a Springfield Model 1873 was going on auction which is proven to have been at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
I am familiar with a few years ago during a burn off of the battlefield that forensics were used to track various weapons on the field, as they left their own fingerprints in the casings expelled by the firing pins being unique.
Some background on this gun in it was manufactured by the Springfield Armory and 500 of these guns were provided to the 7th Cavalry. I assume the above firearm was a known rifle which was utilized by the Benteen Reno survivor group.
The Indians had a variety of weaponry, and I recall what was amusing to me, which was not so amusing in the reading in there was one buck who was on a hill peppering the Reno and Benteen squads. It was particularly upsetting to me, as this foul soul was shooting the horses. The person who kept Custer's horses and dogs, stated that Dandy had been shot in the neck which was the General's pet horse.
Dandy looked like a mule, and came out of a Missouri horse dump into Kansas, but he was one of those horses who never ran off when left to graze and the General would hang onto the tail and have the horse pull him up mountains while climbing.
An officer who had a buffalo rifle had enough of that pecking at them, and shot the SOB, thus ending it, and at least Dandy survived as he was sent back to Michigan to live out his days with Father Custer, riding him in parades.
It has been proven according to the government that the Indians used 47 different types of weapons at the battle, bu the Springfield was what the military was issued as the standard round which saw service into the Spanish American War.
The 1873 Springfield shot a 45 70 405. That means in old buffalo hunting terminology, it fired a 45 caliber round using 70 grains of blackpowder with a 405 grain slug.
General Custer's personal weapon I have written of and exclusively posted on here, was a Remington Rolling Block in the same caliber. It was a very good load for thumping game like the round it replaced in the 50 70.
Winchester in their lever actions of the 1883 class I believe produced a 45 75 and a 45 90 which was Teddy Roosevelt's Medicine Gun.
All the rounds would put big holes in Indians or bears to their demise. The 45 70 is still a round available today in "bear thumper" rifles like the Marlin lever action. Loaded up to modern velocities this round can approach elephant gun status in the 458 Winchester which John Olin introduced. One though needs a modern firearm for that and the trapdoor Springfields were not built for that.
Oh and trapdoor meant in this breach-loading gun, that it loaded by opening a "door" in flipping it, while the Rolling Block opened the breach by sliding it out of the way.
This gun it was said would jam due to sticking cartridges and was pointed to as one reason the battle went not the best for General Custer, but it was Reno and Benteen leaving that troop to die is what caused the problems, as they had the same trapdoors and survived.
They are pretty guns and I would have enjoyed shooting elk or Indians with one.
It is one of the grande miseries I have as I ponder a day some rich person donates six figures to me, and I through hard work, am able to in time then afford the luxury of a buffalo rifle in the cartridge I would choose. The 45 70 would be most serviceable as brass is still manufactured, but Billy Dixon had that Big 50 which was a 50 90, and that would take the stuffing out of anything.......that German, Meyer though he had a 40 90 that Col. Dodge had which was effective.
Tis the problem as I would want a Teddy Roosevelt 45 90 or 45 75 too even if I had to handload.
Is what the fun is too, in if I was rich tomorrow I would probably buy that battlefield weapon, and just to be me, I would get it checked to make sure it was solid, and then I would go shoot it.......probably really get my ass in a sling and haul it out to the battlefield and let off a round for a salute.
Am certain it would cause mucho problems for the uniform wearers as they pulled pistols and I explained I was just bringing a 73 home to where it killed Indians before.
Yes that would really find a great deal appreciation in the Interior anal people.
Erskine Allin was the inventor and the reality is that gun will probably be sold for more than he made off of his invention.
See it would be so much fun being rich. All the adventures.....could get horses and ride out next June 24th through the Cheyenne Reservation, if those malignant racists would not kill you......and pop up with that 73, probably getting it cleared with the park service to fire some rounds off, and if not, get a Montanan who owns the land next to the site to allow me to shoot some rounds off in that gun.
Montanans would probably like that in a big FU to the government.
Maybe the ghosts of Custer would appear....lots of ghosts at that site calling for justice for the mass murder that took place there by the cartel. Indians included I have read of riding horses there.
Any way that is enough fun as is 10 and I need to go pray that God blows the rich people out of their holes to get them to donate, so I can someday go on adventures like eating buffalo and elk shot by a big cartridge gun.
agtG
