![]() ![]() There is even a good case to be made for the Spencer repeating rifle being responsible, in some part, for General George Gordon Meade's victory over Robert E. The preponderance of early Spencer repeaters appear to have been rifles many of the rifles were initially issued to mounted troops, actually, and were often used alongside the carbines carried by their comrades. Though ballistics were similar, the Spencer had one great advantage - it could be loaded and fired in a fraction of the time that was necessary for either of the other two guns. The Sharps 462-grain bullet moved out at about 1,000 fps, for an ME of 1,100 ft-lbs. 58-caliber Springfield, firing a 500-grain bullet backed by 60 grains of powder, produced a muzzle velocity of 950 fps and a muzzle energy of 1,000 ft-lbs. Enforced fire discipline: The Stabler cutoff consists of a small lever in front of the trigger, which turns the Spencer into a single-shot, with the loaded tubular magazine in reserve.įor comparison's sake, the standard. 555-diameter (depending on the manufacturer) bullet backed by some 45 grains of black powder to give a muzzle velocity of some 1,200 fps and a muzzle energy of 1,125 ft-lbs. The chosen caliber, and the one that would remain constant throughout the war, was. Many officers were also privately purchasing Spencers and then showing them to brother officers - who rushed out and bought the guns themselves. In no time, orders were forthcoming from commanders wishing to equip their units with it. Cavalry units carried a conglomeration of muzzleloading and breechloading single-shots. 58-caliber Springfield muzzleloading Minie rifle-musket, with many regulars and state troops armed with more archaic firearms. infantry arm was a then state-of-the-art. Remember, at this time the principal U.S. With the start of the Civil War, Spencer quickly moved into gear, attempting to interest military authorities in his repeating rifle. Early models involved smallbore sporting rifles of. A manufactory was soon established at Cheney's, and Spencer's arms company was in operation. Raising the lever chambered the next round and so on, until all the ammunition was expended. SPENCER REPEATING RIFLE SERIAL NUMBER LOOKUP FREEThis action pulled the case from the chamber by means of a thin, finger-like extractor and then popped it free of the gun by sliding it across a narrow ramp that dropped down into a groove on the top of the block. Now all one had to do was cock the hammer, aim and fire.įollowing discharge, the hammer was again placed on halfcock (necessary from a safety standpoint, as the firing pin was a single piece of metal sliding through the right side of the breechblock, and if the action were closed quickly, it would be possible to accidentally discharge a round), and the lever was lowered. Next, the shooter put the hammer on halfcock and lowered the lever to allow a cartridge to be pushed into position by the follower. A spring-loaded follower tube was then pressed into the tube and locked in place. One dropped a number of cartridges, nose-first, into the magazine. Working the Spencer repeating rifle was simple and reliable. On March 6, 1860, Spencer received a patent on a lever-action repeater with a rotating block, which fed rimfire cartridges into the chamber via a tubular magazine bored through the buttstock. His seminal design was simply nothing short of revolutionary and the best firearm of its type to be fielded for a good number of years afterward.īorn in 1833, after serving his initial apprenticeship as a mechanic at the Cheney Brothers silk manufacturing company, Spencer moved on to other venues, including a short stint at Colt, where he was employed designing revolver-fabricating machinery.Ī repeating milestone: The distinctive lever/block of the Spencer Carbine. For instance, as early as 1861 he was tooling back and forth from Manchester to Hartford, CT, in a steam buggy of his own design-until the locals decided that the thing just made too much noise and he was ordered to remove it from the public thoroughfare.ĭuring his lifetime, Spencer was responsible for a plethora of patents, including such diverse contrivances as a textile spool labeling machine, an automatic lathe turret and an early pump shotgun.īut it was the Spencer repeating rifle that really established his name in the pantheon of American inventors. Christopher Miner Spencer was one of those 19th century Edisonian inventors who could successfully turn his hand at just about whatever caught his fancy at the time.
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