The Hunting Indiana Team Project, This 154 yr old rifle!

One of my first endeavors was to determine what this rifle was chambered.
With input from y'all, I decided to do a quick chamber casting with wax.
This was enough to convince me and others that the rifle was chambered for a 50-70.

So, I'm finally back to revisiting this thread.
Since I was concerned with the integrity of the rifle, I started by contacting esshup to get some feedback. Initially, it seemed that the rifle was sound enough to shoot and I thank esshup for his input.
Then, on another trip, I actually had bullseye69 physically check the gun out for me. All seemed favorable. Thanks for the input my friend!
I even took the gun to various gunsmiths on my treks around the Midwest and each man was convinced the rifle was a shooter.
But, I had not broken the gun down and I really wanted to see if all the parts were intact and not compromised in any way.
I called my buddy and asked if I could disassemble the rifle to thoroughly check it out.
He replied with an "Absolutely!"

I'm glad I did because upon disassembly I found that the firing pin was broken in 3 pieces. Thus, I was on many months of a journey to find a new firing pin. One day while I was servicing accounts near Bardstown, KY I stopped at the Civil War Museum and inquired for some help. The guy said he had nothing like that but He gave me the contact of a fellow in Gettysburg PA. After months of searching, The fellow says, "Yep, got what you need. How many do you want?"
Three days later I had the firing pin, cleaned all the parts and reassembled the rifle.
In the upper left you can see the broken firing pin and the new complete firing pin.



Now, my efforts continued to find ammo, bullets, brass or anything to make the 50-70 go Boom again.
bullseye69 had offered help with dies.
esshup had friends who offered options for brass but I had not made the contact yet.

And who would step up one day but our very own stevein!
We talked on the phone a good bit and then I met him for lunch some weeks ago and he laid some 50-70 ammo in my hands.
I was like a kid at Christmas.

On a given day I decided it was time to test the rifle out. I'm not ashamed to say that I was quite nervous! There is a very edgy feeling when it comes to firing a gun that is 154 years old. And I have no clue as to when the trigger was last pulled.

I had read that the gun shot high so I was prepared for this. I started by laser bore sighting from 25 yards and I made a mark for my point of aim as such. I then fired the rifle and was very impressed at the accuracy from 25 and 50 yards. The point of impact was about 3-1/2" high!



After this, stevein has loaded more ammo for me and we are set to see if I can complete my mission to taking a deer with this old relic of a gun. I will add some pics from Steve's bullets once I get them uploaded!

Thanks to all the guys for helping me here. If I left anyone out, don't be offended. Just remind me by adding any comments or feedback!

Awesome!

Very cool. A lot of collaboration amongst manny different people. Now gonna wait for the story with a dead deer taken with the gun.

Great story, looking forward to the continuation of it...SF Woody

Here's my question, where did Stevin come up with the brass/bullets? Were they modified from another round, old stuff sitting around or fabricated specifically for this project? Very interesting, I was wondering about the outcome of this gun. Hope you kill a deer with it!

StarLine makes brass when they feel like it.

When I bought my rifle it took some time to get everything together. I first found a set of 50-70 Lyman dies complete with a M-Die. My press does not accomadate on press capping. LEE makes a slick large and small priming die set that works slick. They do not make a case holder for their priming system. I found some hard cast bullets and bought them for the first run. Then I found a Lee .515 DOUBLE cavity mold. Brass was hard to find and a lot were old collector grade to just sit on a shelf. A notification to buy-it-now came in through Gun(go)Broker and I did at a very reasonable price too. I had a wide choice of Real Black Powder to choose from. Turns out I had just enough 2Fg Swiss to load my first 20 and then 40 more.

My rifle is an 1866 2nd model Alin Trapdoor. First model was a .58 rimfire using a Springfield Musket converted to trapdoor. I would love one in centerfire! Now my rifle differs from Larry's in that the conversion from musket does not have an action so to speak. The trapdoor breechblock is mounted on the barrel and held in place by 2 screws. The barrel was lined to .50 cal and some minor changes to the lock plate, Hammer and stock were made. There is a lot of interesting machining that went into this conversion. As far as I can tell the original breechplug is still intact. I will post some pics probably Friday to show the action and a Repro Springfield musket.

My first 5 rounds were assembled and I did an unmounted proof test. I held the rifle out as far away from me as possible. turned it sideways gangsta style pointed it at the ground and fired it off. Went bang and hit my target. Examined everything and it looked good. Did one more and it passed. So picking a small card and placing it low on my splitting log I shot on Steve's Patio and gun testing range. The third shot I cut the card. Not what I wanted but the 5 rounds did fine. I finished loading them up and when the opportunity presented itself I made the trip to Roush Lake range for more extensive trials. I was disappointed with the POA and the POI. It was about 12 to 14" high with arc shaped groups. The smallest cant would move the group a couple of inches. I am not a stranger to iron sights having competed in ML matches and NRA pistol but this deep V and nubby rounded post kicked my butt. Still I managed to get a couple of 3+ inch groups at 50 yards so I was at least confidant I could improve.

I will post more on my rifle and where I am with it along with a separate reloading post.

A good read on the Trapdoor and it's development. Springfield Master Armorer Erskine S. Allin was in charge of this as well as developing the 1873 45-70.
www.americanrifleman.org/content/origins-of-the-trapdoor-springfield-the-allin-conversions/

So hoping you all can have a great deer season and Larry Highcotton can reach his goal of taking one for the team.

You can dooooooo it!