M1855

[Regular3]

the Armi Sport US 1855 is a better repro than their US 1861 (the US 1855...now there is a weapon that would be appropriate for any battle in the US Civil War, if you could only have one musket)..[Note - this quote came from another thread from which these posts were pulled. THP]I carry an 1855 myself because that's what the Regular unit we portray carried from Texas in 1861 (and I wish I had waited for the Armi Sport version but that's another thread). But please elaborate on your opinion - I didn't think the 1855 was common enough back then to be ranked that high on the list now.

[LibertyHallVols]

But please elaborate on your opinion - I didn't think the 1855 was common enough back then to be ranked that high on the list now.

I'll take a crack at that one...

Craig is Right: The US M1855 was produced and distributed prior to the start of the war and would have been available to "anyone" at the beginning and their use can be found throughout the war.

Craig is Wrong: The US M1855 was not used by every unit at every time/place of the war. It is only correct when one is representing a unit/time/place that represent actual use of the US M1855.

Our only barriers to complete authenticity are money and time. :rolleyes: So, this is really a decision made based on personal economics ("I can only afford one musket, so which one do I get?") and choice ("get the overcoat and frock or another musket?").

These factors taken into consideration, as well as your "home" club's druthers for their core impression, you could do a lot worse than a '55!

[Craig L Barry]

...and then not qualifying it, for which I apologize. The 1855 does not have very broad utility as you point out, based on the smaller numbers produced fewer troops had them. However, when the bell rang for the first round of the fight back in 1861 it was the only US model rifle-musket ready for issuance on either side. And they were still in use through out the war. During this period smoothbores pre-dominated. However, the majority of units were issued rifle-muskets by around July 1863, so to generalize for the last half of the war, rifle-muskets pre-dominated and smoothbores were found in steadily diminishing numbers. Hence...if you could only have one (1) infantry arm and have it cover everything from Ft Sumter to Appomattox, wouldn't it necessaily be the US 1855? I think it is the only rifle-musket that meets all the criteria.

Were the 1855s common? Well, there were around 59,000 US 1855 rifle muskets, and 7,000 US 1855 rifles at the start of the war. The Confederates considered their Richmond Armory rifle-musket a copy of the US 1855, which it was (minus the tape primer) and referred to it as such, so that adds another 34,000. The 1855 in various forms and its CS copies totaled around 100,000 arms. Not common compared to the Enfield or US 1861, but hardly uncommon. These numbers compare favorably to the US 1841 rifle, which would be another candidate for a weapon not out of place at any Civil War battle. The only other possiblity is a smoothbore musket, 1816 or 1842.

Very, very few infantry arms provide potential utility (meaning they would not be anachronistic) for every possible battle scenario. Probably just those three. Are there any others I might have missed?

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

"Are there any others I might have missed?"

Nope.

(One needs to look at what was "around" in "numbers," versus the manufacture or import rates of other longarms.)


In terms of what is "correct," look to the oft repeated caveat of what a specific unit had at a specific time and place, is what that unit had at that specific time and place.

;) :)

CHS
M1855 RM, M1855 R, and "Richmond" RM user himself Mess

[Regular3]

...and then not qualifying it, for which I apologize. The 1855 does not have very broad utility as you point out, based on the smaller numbers produced fewer troops had them. However, when the bell rang for the first round of the fight back in 1861 it was the only US model rifle-musket ready for issuance on either side. Thanks, no apology necessary for curing misconceptions that there weren't enough 1855s around to justify owning one of those rather than, say, an 1861 Springfield ... I'm pretty sure that Oliver Shepherd's Regular brigade had 1855s when they fought at your place. :mrgreen:

Unfortunately, as I alluded to in my previous post, the Euroarms version of the 1855 is really just a Richmond rifle musket with US markings. Oh, it has the Maynard door cover, but it's welded in place. At least with the Armi Sport version you can flip open the door. The good news is that "correct" 1855s with a working Maynard system (or one that would work if you could get the tapes) are not really out of reach cost-wise. You can have John Zimmerman make one, or you can pick up an original without breaking the bank - Lodgewood listed one last fall for $1495. (They also list the Maynard tapes for $300)

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

It is a longer discussion, as well as what could be a "skill level required" thing, but Rich Cross makes copies of reproduction original M1855 plates with the hinged door, tape mortise, and mechanism slots.
It will work with repro M1861 "guts" (Italian guts being another story.) and the repro original M1855 hammer.

To my knowledge (but may be out of the loop these Daze) no one makes repro M1855 "ratchets and hands" that advanced the tape primer so pricey originals would have to be used if one wanted a "fully functional" Maynard system.

But, since the Italian repor's are not true to original size, the repro original size Cross plate may require some "fitting work."
Although the Last Armi Sport work I did a few years ago involved dropping a Cross M1861 lockplate in. It went in just fine with a little tapping from a rubber mallet.

Cross stuff is available from Lodgewood and S & S Firearms.

CHS

[Craig L Barry]

Maybe the Mods could move the 1855 discussion to another thread, because it is an interesting and worthwhile topic. The bug bit me because my first little self initiated project was retro-verting (my favorite term from the Curt Heinrich Schmidt lexicon) a Euroarms 1861 into a US 1855 using S & S lock parts, which as I recall are tooled for the original screw threads (something oddball like 10/24"). I know they were not metric...had to get all new lock screws.

The current repros do not do much justice to the original US 1855, but do make it easier to find your musket in the stack of Enfields and US 1861s. The weapon has a "cult" following, and James River Armory (back in the day) did a pretty nice working tape primer repro for under a grand.

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

Make him stop, make him stop! ;) :)

Memories are popping up from the daze before M1855 parts were available such as the "patch box." A lad was casting a one piece, non-functional version, and I had to cut two back from the hinge line- and hand file, fit, drill out, and pin to make one working one.

:)

CHS

[Craig L Barry]

The good old days of hand filing and fitting to make a '55 lock! That's what our lives are missing these days...everything is too easy. Why when Herr Kammeraden and I were still youngsters in lederhosen, if you wanted an 1855, you had to build one!

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

And had to walk six miles to the peat bog to dig bog iron ore to smelt down to make the parts...
It was really hard to keep the peat stains off the Lederhosen.

:)

CHS
Unwashed Lederhosen Mess

[Regular3]

Maybe the Mods could move the 1855 discussion to another thread, because it is an interesting and worthwhile topic. The bug bit me because my first little self initiated project was retro-verting (my favorite term from the Curt Heinrich Schmidt lexicon) a Euroarms 1861 into a US 1855 using S & S lock parts, which as I recall are tooled for the original screw threads (something oddball like 10/24"). I know they were not metric...had to get all new lock screws.

The current repros do not do much justice to the original US 1855, but do make it easier to find your musket in the stack of Enfields and US 1861s. The weapon has a "cult" following, and James River Armory (back in the day) did a pretty nice working tape primer repro for under a grand.Zimmerman's 1855 rifle muskets are retroverted Euroarms 61's. I don't know whether he gets the parts from a supplier or makes them himself ... I've wondered for a while if there's a way to turn my Euroarms 1855 into a better version of itself with a correct lock plate, door, feeder, etc.

And when I say "working" Maynard system that really isn't what I mean, but rather one that has the basic pieces of the system that I could point to at a living history demo. A couple of our members now have Zimmerman's 1855, and I'm jealous - But not so much that I'd spend the money on one for myself. :mrgreen:

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

I just checked S & S's catalog and saw that they no longer list the Cross M1855 lockplates, just the non-functional ones with no mortise and a fixed door.

It might be worth a call to them or Lodgewood, or search the N-SSA board.

I may even have one or two still down in the dusty parts box.

The last time I used one, the cost was about $200 give or take as one needed the Cross lock plate, as well as the repro M1855 hammer and "M1861" lock "guts" as the Italian internals are not the same size and are "metric" threaded.

I have still have a full custom-built "Richmond" I built around 1988 and never used. I am torn between leaving as a Richmond, retroverting it to a late model M1855, or altering it to an M1861 "someday."

CHS

[Craig L Barry]

...at kindergarten we were given pints of Beck's Octoberfest lager in our sipper-seal cups and we all learned metal working by doing US 1855 projects in shop class.

I think the cool thing about the S & S locks is that they make an Eli Whitney version. Whitney made some number of US 1855s on contract, or something like a US 1855 out of condemned parts...and some that were like the high hump Richmonds. So you can take an Italian repro 1855 and do some really interesting things with it. They had pewter nose caps. These are in addition to the 100,000 or so 1855s made at the Federal and CS Armories.

[Tiger_rifles]

Ok, so since we are playing ask the experts here.....
Lets say one has an original Mdl 1861 were the forearm has been replaced,( due to someone makeing a shotgun out of it), and the barrel has been taken back out to full lenth and lined, (destroying any collector value and being used for Living Histories and displays for years now). Could this musket be made into a correct 1855 mdl by mounting a 1855 lock plate in the 1861 Lock space,(removeing the extra wood), and replaceing the nose cap with a brass one?

Secondly, a friend,(YES, I do have friends!), has an original 1855,(dated 1859/SF I believe), that has a brass primer-tape door. Would this be a post-war, CS/Richmond, etc.... Repair?
Your thoughts?

And to add to what Mr. Barry was saying.........
Not only was the Mdl 1855 issued from The beginning to the end, but from coast to coast! My relations carried them at 1st Bull Run inVirginia, they were issued to the 1st Colo. "The Pikes Peakers" at Fort Union, NM just before thier fight at the Battle of Glorieta, and many found thier way to troops in California!
Thank you.

[Curt-Heinrich Schmidt]

Hallo!

"Lets say one has an original Mdl 1861 were the forearm has been replaced,( due to someone makeing a shotgun out of it), and the barrel has been taken back out to full lenth and lined, (destroying any collector value and being used for Living Histories and displays for years now). Could this musket be made into a correct 1855 mdl by mounting a 1855 lock plate in the 1861 Lock space,(removeing the extra wood), and replaceing the nose cap with a brass one?"

Yes, I had a friend who had a Suhl that retroverted it back to an 1855. (Not sure why, but he did...)

At any rate, if oyu went with a late model M1855 (Type II) you can keep the iron nosecap but you will need an M1855 RM short range rear sight, and a "patch box."

If you go with an early model (Type I), you have to replace the nosecap for brass and at the M1855 RM long range rear sight.

"Secondly, a friend,(YES, I do have friends!), has an original 1855,(dated 1859/SF I believe), that has a brass primer-tape door. Would this be a post-war, CS/Richmond, etc.... Repair? Your thoughts?"

Interesting. I have run across such. There is one (or two) M1855 with missing doors, but it is not know when that happened (say 1863 or 1893 or 1943...).
I would be curious... If it can be arranged, place a magnet on the door to see whether it is brass or brass plated. I have seen post war Springfields with brass plarted hammers and bands, etc. where someone was making a "curiousity piece." I have also seen some with gold painted parts. (Reminds of the ads in gun magazines for "commerative" guns... ;) )

CHS

[Craig L Barry]

...those projects "put togethers" and they are great for living histories/historic arms demos. While they have no historical value such as being tied to a particular soldier in a particular campaign, or even much value to collectors (for the same reason...though they pop up at gun shows all the time) they are of course, much more accurate in detail than modern reproductions. And they are not necessarily all that much more expensive. I use an 1862 Tower Enfield which was a similar project to your US rifle musket. It had been shortened to two band length, and so on. It would take about 5,000 words to describe what all it took to make something useful out of it because of the parts challenges, but the Springfield would be comparatively easy because of the interchangeability of parts for those models. Euroarms lock parts are so close that many of them interchange with original US 1861s and vice-versa.

I am not sure there was an Armory produced US 1855 primer lock with a brass door. And the design was obsolete antebellum, so I doubt it would be a post-bellum alteration. Not sure what to tell you there. I would not use that particular lock on my "put together". Are you certain it is brass and not brass plated?

"IF" it were me, and there was no gunsmith or any of his specialized tools in the house, and I wanted a US 1855 put together for (re)enacting, I would invest in one of those dummy lock plates, and the other hardware. If you use one of the "functioning" repro lock assemblies, you will need to modify the lock mortise to accomodate the moving tape primer parts. That can be done, of course, but may require professional help as 150 year old wood must be very worked with greater caution. It all depends on your skill level and comfort. As a rule, the optimum way to go is repro walnut stock from Dunlap with professional shaping and lock mortise work, relined or repro barrel and original lock/hardware. For example, putting a patchbox in an original stock would be a challenge. One other option would be a "transitional" gun...it's all a matter of what compromises you are comfortable with and how deep your pockets are.

[Tiger_rifles]

OK, I just got off the phone.......The door is ALL brass, and unmarked/unstamped. The lock date is 1857. This musket was taken to Jim Mitchell for inspection. Mr. Mitchell stated that he is very sure this is a Harpers ferry stock, barrel, etc...., mostlikely parts taken from HF during/after Jacksons raid and built up later. When asked if the door was make at Richmond, he stated "NO", work like this was done at Montgomery, Ala.
I do not know Mr. Mitchell myself so please don't shoot the messenger!

[Tiger_rifles]

Hallo!

post war Springfields with brass plarted hammers and bands, etc. where someone was making a "curiousity piece." I have also seen some with gold painted parts. (Reminds of the ads in gun magazines for "commerative" guns... ;) )

CHS
I have never seen parts brass plated, but I have seen many parts that were painted Gold, Silver, Black. Years ago I was able to pick up a very nice 1839 dated SF cone in barrel conv. ALL the metal parts to the gun were painted GOLD! I got this from a lady, who got it from her father, who got it from his uncle. The Uncle was contracted to clean out an old GAR Post,(after the last Vet had passed away), and convert it into a restarant outside of Pittsburg, Pa. I was told this was on eof many muskets, swords, bayonets, etc.... that were still on the walls! This musket still had the Gold paint under the barrel bands, and it was not sprayed on paint, you could still see the brush strokes! This musket must have never left an Armoury as it looked new, w/a nice dark grey color to the steel. Every part on this musket is stamped with a "III" even the screws!
I have another musket like this one, a HF that was painted silver. Even has some paint on the stock,(were they did not bother to remove the trigger bar), but it had some lite pitting, was cleaned, then painted. This was not a whole musket as someone had already stolen parts,(barrel bands, ramrod), but does have the number "2" stamped on all the parts, 1855 hammer and a odd "Almond" shaped drum conv on the barrel.

[Blair]

Paul,

1857 was the first year of production of the 1855's for Springfield and Harpers Ferry
That first firearm is the brass mounted "Rifle". Sometimes called the type I Rifle today.
The first Rifle Musket comes out in 1858. This has a long range rear sight located about 6 inches from the barrel breech face. The only '55 with a sight in that location. This Rifle Musket is called the type I Rifle Musket. No M-1861 can be made into this type I model due to this rear sight set up without replacing the barrel.
The stock and furniture on the type I RM remains the same on the type II Rifle Musket. Production starts in 1859 on the type II RM.
The type III Rifle Musket production starts in late 1859 early 1860 and continues through to the end. The type III RM adopts the iron patch box and chance the nose cap to iron. This is the last type RM in the '55 series.
Also in 1858 production starts on the iron mounted "Rifle" (type II Rifle). This iron mounted Rifle would replace the brass Rifle by the end of 1858. This Rifle remains unchanded except for various rear sight changes.
Production of the '55's ends at Springfield in late 1860.
Harpers Ferry is still in production of the type III Rifle Musket and the type II Rifle when it is caprured by VA State troops in 1861.

The Richmond made guns are a copy of the '55 type I stock and the overall style of the type II Rifle musket due to the rear sight configuration. Many production Richmond's will also use brass butt plates as well, but not all. Richmond has the tooling for the Maynard primer system but due to the added time and cost of production never adopts the system. Un finished locks from Harpers Ferry were never finished for use of the primer system.
I know of "no" Armory produced '55's with a brass primer magazine door.
This sounds to me like someones efforts to try to restore a '55 lock plate and would probably be a post War addition, prehaps to help keep water and/or moisture out of the lock area. This was not very successful even with the Armory made guns which is why they were in the process of doing away with the system just before the War. When the War starts many Maynarde Primed firearms simply had the nipple changed to convert them to accept the standard percusion caps and issued out.
Blair Taylor

[Tiger_rifles]

Thanks Blair,
That makes more sense. So if converting a mdl 1861 to a mdl 1855 type III you don't need to change out the nose cap.
I remember years ago an online discussion ref. Colt Dragoons. The point was made that in 1848 a worker in the Colt factory would not have refused to put "squareback" triggerguards on the new "square stop" cylinder model Dragoons, argueing that "we can not put Type I triggerguards on a Type II Dragoon!". Meaning that there was not "Types" for them, they just used what parts were made until they were used up. Then when improved parts came down the line, they used those. Same is true with the mdl 1816/22 musket, and so on.

As for the 55 w/brass primer door, I would never suggest someone copy this example to use in the field. With only one known example and no record of where it came from its a real oddball.
But how many examples of one thing do we need to see to know if it was "common"? I have seen atleast a half dozen examples of Type III 1855 RM's, all iron mounted but with a brass nose cap.

In my early teens I remember a roadside tourist shop (just at the end of Skyline Drive, Front Royal Va.), that had three, 3-band Richmonds and two Richmond Carbines on the wall....... but almost no other muskets. A local collector explained to me that these were "Made up Richmonds". I was told that after the war, barrels of "Richmond" lockplates were found and traded by musket collectors. As the price on "Richmond"s went up, so did the number of mdl 1855's that had thier lockplate replaced and a brass nose cap put on!
There are some that say Richmond never made any 3-banders due to the trouble boreing 40" barrels and fine/cured wood blanks, but only repaired 1855's and 1861's to go back to the field...... but that is a discussion for another thread! Many Thanks to all for your deep knowledge on these old weapons.

[Craig L Barry]

...an excellent insight. At the time the small hardware changes were made, they were seen as evolutionary and not distinctly new "types". The US 1861 was an update of the US 1855, but also a new model. The Richmond was a version of the US 1855, and not a copy of the US 1861 since it used 1855 tools and dies. Same with the Enfield in that we talk about "type III" vs. "type IV" and these distinctions were not made at the time. Also with US models there are sometimes transitional weapons where the exact typology does not workout perfectly, but in general these changes were "found" with such and such dates, etc.

I picked up (partially as a result of these discussions, but also because I wanted to do a different winter project than the flint to percussion conversion I had on the board) a US 1861 converted at some point in its life cycle to a US 1855, and it was not one of the Italian repros. It turned out upon teardown to be one of those Dixie/Miroku 1861 kits retroverted to a '55, and fairly well done. The ladder sight is wrong, of course, for the date on the lockplate (1859), which is wrong for not having a patchbox so it is a matter of which historical features to correct...However, the maynard lock plate was skillfully welded to the top edge of the '61 lockplatewith a hinged door and a pin, the wood was skillfully mortised, etc. Very cool weapon that I will enjoy fixing up as this year's winter project.

Gee, whoever had it before did not understand the function of the "clean-out" screw...