A Brit Spoon This Time Out
 

This time out of the gate Lad's it is a BSA Martini Presentation Target rifle in 22LR. The spoon has a plaque on the side that offeres the paticulars of the presentation in 1916. Nice conditon and a custom by Bonehill of Birmingham...unsual one of a kind type of thing an all that..

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Very similar to the rifles used in the movie "Zulu" aint it?

An observant Lad you are...and yes it is a Martini Henry of type that the British empire used from the 1870's through the 1890's...only the caliber is a bit different..this is 22LR and not the 577 service cartridge of the British Army.

Uh, yeah, that's a slight difference! :D

"It's a miracle!"

"If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a short chamber Boxer Henry point 45 caliber miracle."

~From the movie Zulu

Bloody Hell!

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I love that freaking movie. It's in my collection, i still watch it about 2-3x a year. I must have seen it at least 50x.

"They're mocking us."

"Mocking you? No old boy...they're saluting you!"

Very nice, tabby. I've always liked the Martinis. They are pretty much as ubiquitous to British firearms history and lore as the lever gun is to ours, being produced in just about any caliber one can imagine and in guises suitable for the commoner to a king. Plus, they filled a roll for which our lever gun was deemed unsuitable - that as a battle rifle. Oh, some may say it was closer to our Trapdoor, being a single shot and everything, but I would respectfully disagree. The Trapdoor was very, very limited in variety of configuration and chambering. The Martini knew no such limits.

The US Cavalry used lever guns didn't they Jeff?

The Trapdoor was standard issue from 1868 to the Spanish American War in 98. The reasoning for the Trapdoor was that they could ALTER the Cvil War muskets into the Trapdoor Configuration. The original caliber was 50/70 and in 1873 it became the 45/70...

The Carbines were downloaded a bit to 45/55 and some Target Rifles were uploaded to 45/85

Standard issue to the Cavarly was the Trapdoor Carbine , after the Little Bighorn it was felt that the Cav units needed a bit of long range firepower so a few rifles were put into the mix in each cav company.

A few Hotchkiss Carbines were issued here and there as a secondary arm.

During the Reno/Benteen Defensive Fight at the Little Bighorn..there were 6 known Big 50 (50/70) Springfield Trapdoor Rifles used. I potentially have one of those that was used at the Bighorn. Although forensic testing as of this date can not conclusivily state it was used there. The rifle I have was owned by Medal of Honor receipant at the Big Horn Saddler Otto Voit of Benteens Co H.

The principle researchers and archaeologists of the site had felt it could possibly be Captain Frenchs Big 50 Springfield. If that rifle had proven forensically to have been at the Big Horn...well that would be retirement kind of money.

The Otto Voit Rifle


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Shame they didn't have any winchester repeating rifles at Little Big Horn.

Shame they didn't have their Gatling Guns or cannons either....

No, never as standard issue except for the earliest versions used in the Civil War. The Spencer and original Henry saw some action there, but were widely regarded as significantly under powered for military use.

The first commonly available lever guns firing a true full power rifle caliber were the '86 Winchesters. Marlin actually beat them to the punch with their own rifle caliber lever gun a few years earlier, but the '86 was the first to be produced in large numbers. By that time, other countries were already looking at, and adopting, some of the early bolt guns and their small caliber, high velocity chamberings.

Repeaters were looked down upon by military brass of the time anyway. Lever guns are difficult to manipulate from the prone position, and very difficult to single load. Military brass would accept a repeater, but they really wanted a magazine cutoff that would allow it to be loaded and operated as a single shot, keeping the magazine contents in reserve, to repell a charge or something. Bolt guns lend themselves perfectly to this kind of use.

Winchester did get some contracts for lever action muskets, but they were all foreign contracts.

IIRC Custer opted out of dragging Gatling guns along. Too heavy and would slow his troop down...................... I wonder if he re-thought that decision during the battle?

I suspect that he did.

Well, the decision to not bring them certainly didn't haunt him for very long. :-/

From what I remember, Custer was a day or two ahead of the artillery and gatlings. He was, essentially, showboating. Seizing an opportunity for glory against what he believed to be an ill-disciplined, outnumbered, under equiped opponent. He was going to "take the initiative" and neatly rout them all on his own. If he had waited a day or two, the outcome could have been far different. But he would have had to have shared the glory. He wasn't that kind of guy.

By the way, he had his own .50 caliber, a .50-70 Remington Rolling Block that he used for hunting. Neither his Rolling Block, nor the Trapdoors present at the fight, were "Big 50's". The .50-70 was on a 1.75" case, where the real "Big 50" was on a 2.5" case. It held substantially more powder and fired a good deal heavier bullet. Neither the Trapdoor nor the Rolling Block will accept this long of a cartridge. This was the caliber Billy Dixon used for his famous shot at Adobe Walls, Texas, with a borrowed '74 Sharps.

For once Jeffy you are off the mark with this one. while you are right about the 50/90 being the "Big 50"...you are wrong about the nomenclature of the literature about the Battle....The term that is used about the Springfield 50/70 is the "BIg Springfield" or "Big 50 Springfield"

Custers battle plan was for Reno to attack the villiage from the South cuasing the Indian women and children to flee to the North where he would be waiting..However he never was able to get to the North..he was caught and quickly routed by an overwhelming force that in fact had superior close range firepower.

The Indians said that rubbing Custer out took no longer than a hungry man takes to eat his dinner..

So Custer had just enough time to say, "OHHH SHYTE."

Interesting - I had honestly never heard of the .50-70 Trapdoor refered to as a "Big 50". I could see the "Big Springfield", but I have never actually heard or seen that reference, either. Were these terms used in specific reference to this one battle, or were they in general use?

Not showboating, gambling. He felt he could never catch up to his opponent if he was lugging his big guns along with him.

As Patton would later say, "Nothing is impossible in war provided that it is executed with audacity."

That was the premise Custer was operating under IMO. Little did he know they were already waiting for him en masse...

His biggest mistake, IMO, was splitting his forces.