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This is my new toy!  I have obscured the serial number for safety's sake.  

 

This particular gun is the 5th model, "model of 1864."  I have an ancestor who was assigned to A Troop, 2nd Illinois Cavalry Regiment, which was issued this carbine.  I know he did not carry this particular gun because my ancestor was wounded at Shiloh in 1862 and subsequently discharged; this gun was manufactured in early to mid 1864.  But it's pretty awesome to have the same type of gun he carried, anyway.

 

The cartridge it fires does not have a primer incorporated; it has a hole in the case head that is slightly smaller than a granule of ffg powder.  So the shooter has to put a musket cap on the nipple like its front stuffing cousins.  

 

Thanks to the help of some pards on this here web site, I have located some modern-made brass to make her sing again (pending a gunsmith's inspection).  

Burnside 1.jpg

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12 hours ago, Alpo said:

Gonna grow you some muttonchops to go with it?

 

general-burnside-civil-war-war-is-hell-s

 

He was the inventor of this gun, but funny enough, he didn't make a single cent off it!  He resigned from the Army between the Mexican-American War and the Civil War, and went into business making guns, including this one.  But he went bankrupt and sold the patent, and re-entered the Army when the CW started.  The Union ended up buying about 55,000 of these guns, but his former partner owned the patent :)  

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