Good Luck at Gander Mountain

B

Bigfatts

New member
I sold an AR today and with the funds I went looking for a revolver. Hit all the big shops and some of the little ones. Only thing I saw that caught my eye was a Hungarian DA Hi Power, but they wanted a little too much for it and my brother talked me out of it, nothing on the revolver front. We were headed home all dejected at finding nothing locally and I had resigned myself to scouring Gunbroker for the revolver I wanted- I was looking for a single action in .45 Colt but no luck locally. Then my brother says "Hey, what about Gander Mountain?" I never think of them because one just opened recently and it's pretty out of the way. What the heck, right? Drove out and started in the used racks. Immediately noticed some pretty interesting and unusual rifles. OLD M70's, old .22's, some real old lever guns and BAM! There it is, sitting right on the end of the rack, one of my all time dream rifles.

H&R reproduction 1873 Trapdoor Cavalry Carbine. BRAND. NEW. A guy had brought it in to trade, said he had gotten it as a gift 40 years ago and he never liked it. It had sat, unfired and still in the box, in his closet since then. He traded it for something new. It's perfect, not a scratch, not a ding. New. I had to have it. I have wanted one of these rifles since I got into guns when I tirned 18 but could never swing the funds. And here was one, brand new, for a very good price. Needless to say it came home with me. Tomorrow I'm going hog hunting and this will be tagging along. If it shoots straight, it will be sitting in the stand with me.



 
Only issue to look out for is to make sure the set screw on the locking lug is tight or it won't lock. And yes, it will fire if not locked, so be sure you check it out. Other than that, they are pretty nice guns. I had someone try to trade me an H&R Officer's Model 1873 (engraving, color case action) last week, but I am not looking for anything like that.
 
As a trapdoor owner, one thing to keep in mind is to be careful what you feed it. The action is weak.
Ammo made for modern lever guns fed into a trapdoor makes a certain kaboom. I shoot black powder only in mine.
 
Also very aware. The basic loads from Winchester, Remington and Federal are all safe for the TD's. I bought one box and just plan on reloading for it after that.
 
My original Trap door carbines all shoot about eight inches high at 25 yards, I loaded black powder for them or for a super fun plinker use a 425 gr bullet with 12 grains of Unique, a mild load with a lot of punch. Your modern trapdoor will take higher pressure due to the metallurgy of today. It still is not a magnum action though.
 
Can anybody link me to any info in regards to pinning the latch cam on the breech block? I can find lots of references to it but very little info on what is actually involved in doing it. Mine is tight and seems solid but if there is a permanent fix for it I'll definitely look into it for down the road.

Also, there seems to be very little info on production dates for these. I know there were a couple different runs of them and there were minor variations between the runs, I'd like to nail down which run mine belongs to. As I understand it the later runs are a little more desirable and I'd like to see exactly what the differences were. My rifle has the same Williams rear buckhorn sight that my old Navy Arms .45-70 Enfield had on it. Little things like that.
 
Your H&R 1873 Cavalry Carbine was made between 1972 and 1986. They were made in two grades:
* Deluxe (marked "Officer's Model")- engraved, nicer wood, and color case hardened, original type sight
and
* Cavalry Carbine- plain wood, blued receiver, flip-up rear sight.

Yours appears to be the second type.

There was another run of them in 1973 for the Centennial of the adoption by the US Army, called the Cavalry Rifle, with a 22" barrel.
 
Those dates help narrow it down, thanks. The only thing I see that is different is the rear sight. Definitely not a repro of the original flip up. It's a William's adjustable buck horn. That makes me wonder since the rifle is basically nib.
 
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