Period accounts of the defensive fight refer it as the Big Springfield vs the standard 1873 45/70.

The 2nd Allin conversion TD 50/70 was very popular with Buffalo hunters of the day.. guns were surplus and ammo was plentiful and cheap.

The Otto Voit rifle in all probability was his off duty hunting rifle...he was known as a Sharpshooter..meaning he was a good shot...he won the MOH for being one of the 4 riflement who exposed themselves to Indian fire while keeping up fire on them while 24 troopers went down and got water...Where and when he aqquired the rifle is the mystery? Did he pick it up at the LBH?

In all probability Voit was one of the 15 Troopers that went with Benteen and Godfrey to be the first to see the Custer massacre site. Another one of the 4 sharpshooters Windrolph was among that group sooo...

U can see that this rifle has hard use..not abused but well used on the frontier...if one didn't know it came from Otto Voit it would be a $300 wall hanger..

A proffesional picture of this rifle is now in the Otto Voit file at the LBH National Monument..

Here is the kicker...Voit retired from the 7th Cav in 1895 being a 30 year man..he lived in Louisville dieing in 1906 after a short illness. His obit says that he was hit in the head with a spent bullet but wasn't hurt at the battel. He is listed as being wounded at the battle, but no details are given. So the question is just how did the obit writer find out he was hit with a spent bullet and not hurt? I think there is probably a newspaper article written about him before he died somewhere in the files...if that article could be found his account would be a new discovery..adding to the history.

The history now shows that Custer was on a bluff overlooking the Reno fight in the valley...Custer saw that Reno was getting the worst of it..yet he DID NOT try and support Reno but continued on with his plan of cutting off the Indians to the North...

The surviving officers and even the indians said if Custer had supported Reno and not split the command into 3 parts...Reno, Benteen and Custer with 5 companies would have beaten the indians...

Actually the Indians when confronted with Reno swarmed him, they then found out about Custer and left the Reno area to move North to swarm Custer like ants...a few at first but growing in number in a very short time. After Custer was done they returned to Reno and by that time Benteen and the Pack Train had come up to form a defensive perimeter on the bluffs. It was tough going for them that day and into the next.

Benteen and a few of the other officers thought Custer was an egotist...and as such didin't like him. Custer was FOOLHARDY and vastly underestimated the Indians and there willingness to stand and fight.

Many great military leaders are egotists in the extreme. It is from that ego that they believe they can do what no other can do.

Sometimes they're right. Sometimes, they're Custer.....

The "Thunder Run" into Baghdad was a very Custer-ian type of operation in it's own right, and almost ended in abject disaster. In fact, you could probably say that it did, from a strategic standpoint.

The reasoning for this rifle being the Captain French Big Sprinfield is that Captian French was the company commander of one of the other companies was basically cashiered and forced to resign for being an alcholic in 1877. Voit could have gotten the rifle from him before he left? There is some reason why Voit held unto that rifle throughout his life either as a trophy and or as a hunting rifle.

During the Defensive Fight there were 5 other known Big Springfields being used, but those were in the hands of the Civilian Mule Train Packers.. None of the 50/70 spent cartridges were found in the Company H or Otto Voit area of the fight. However there has been over 100 years of people picking up artifacts on the battlefield, so who is to say that that those cartridges wouldn't have been picked up?

Also there is an acount of a dead Indian being found below the Defensive Fight area with a Big Springfield with a cartridge case being stuck in the chamber...this could also be that rifle..as Voit after the fight could very easily have been the one to find it and pick it up?

Custer from the Wa****a had a reputation for letting soldiers under his command being let to hang out and dry...