Trapdoor chamberings

[Fogman01]

A guy I know has a Springfield trapdoor rifle he just bought. He was told it was a 45-70 like most are. The gunsmith chamber cast it and it looks a lot like a 43 Spanish. It definitively has a bottle neck - not straight. I have some 43 Spanish cases and I'll see if they will fit. I'll remeasure the bore too. The guy said it was .43 something. The cases are from a rolling block and I know the rollers were chambered in about anything since they were made for a lot of different foreign military contracts. Is that true of trapdoors? I know very little about them. What were they chambered in besides 45-70? This one is marked in the 1880's not sure which year and he said it does not have foreign proofs on it. We won't shoot it until we are sure what it is.

[Kurt]

I read the history about the trapdoor rifle and they tested the TD in .40, .42 and the .30 caliber as late as the mid 1890's so it's possible that it could be a Spanish chamber.

[Don McDowell]

Could of been something somebody built. A chamber cast is probably your best route.

[Kurt]

That would be my guess also Don.
Maybe even a .44-77

[Fogman01]

So here's the story - The guy had bought this at the Tulsa Gun Show and said he got a "good deal". It was good enough to be a shooter but nothing special. Today the guy went to the gunsmith and I met him there. A 45-70 would not go all the way into the chamber. They did a chamber cast which looked like it was a bottle neck and was around what a .43 might be. The chamber cast showed the c=overall case length was 2.1... hmmmm. I had brought along some of my 44-77 and 43 Spanish cases and pp bullets. The cases no way fit at all. The bullets dropped straight down the barrel but stopped just forward of the chamber. We knew that was wrong. We knew a barrel wouldn't have been made to .45 caliber size but then have a severe constriction just forward of the chamber making it small like a .43. The barrel was clean with good rifling. Unlike some of the falling blocks, it is hard to see all the way through the barrel on a trapdoor from the breach. The gunsmith put the TV bore scope into the chamber and we just could make out the ragged edge of a stuck separated case on the TV screen. So that's what it was - a separated stuck case in a 45-70 trapdoor. No idea how long it was in there but that's probably why it was a "good deal" at the gun show.

[Don McDowell]

LOL, yup , that stuck case would be a game changer.

[Kurt]

I would have thought that the separated case mouth would have pulled out when he drove the chamber cast out unless he did not pour it up into the troth and bore a short ways.

[Fogman01]

The chamber cast clearly showed the stuck case in the cast, so the cast covered it and went up into the barrel a little. I think it had been stuck there for so long the chamber cast material did not affect it. The gunsmith put some penetrating oil on it and is letting it sit awhile. I got a 45-100 separated stuck case out of my rifle by taking a naked pp bullet and pushing it down the muzzle. The bullet barely cleared the rifling but it caught on the mouth of the stuck case. I took a long wooden dowel rod and tapped it out. Nothing else I tried had worked. Now I carry one of those bullets in my range box just in case.
I think this is a good example of why an old rifle should get a chamber cast or at least slug the barrel and should be carefully examined before firing. If that case had gone a little bit further up the barrel, a 45-70 cartridge could have been seated. And could have been fired.

[Luke]

http://www.lodgewood.com/US-M1882-Headle..._1993.html

Every TD shooter should have one.