possible SA 1884 purchase , need advice

Road you have a good start on your collection, keep it up, an enjoyable venture.

I stick mostly to US Arms, though I do have a Mosin and a Remingtion Rolling block in .43 Spanish, but my main collection is USGI, post Cartridge rifle

I have the 50-70 Trapdoor, 45-70 Trap door, 30-40 Krag, M1917, Model 1903 A3, Model 1903A4, Garand (2), Carbine, semi version of the M14, M16A1, M16A2, and M4.

Except for the 50-70 Trapdoor, I have the original USGI bayonets for each of the Above.

I probably wont live long enough to see the Army going to another rifle, so I guess I'll have to start working backwards to the muzzle loaders.

I shoot all the above rifles.
 
Hi, kraigwy,

You wrote, "Except for the 50-70 Trapdoor, I have the original USGI bayonets for each of the Above."

Maybe I misunderstand, and you are more knowledgeable on trapdoors than I, but I do not believe there was any .50-70 bayonet, as such. All were "left over" Civil War .58 rifle-musket bayonets. The bayonets were not changed as the .50-70 barrels were altered by sleeving and the outside diameter was not altered. When the caliber was reduced, new bayonets were made; that lasted until mid-1878 when new machinery made it possible to cold swage the sockets of the old bayonet to the new barrel size. After that, there were no new trapdoor bayonets made until the rod bayonet made the separate bayonet obsolete.

Jim
 
James you are correct. The first 50-70s were modified from the Springfield Muzzle loaders and they used the Muzzle loader bayonets.
 
IIRC all the socket bayonets for TDs were CW surplus, one of the reasons the M1888 was developed was because the supply of leftovers was drying up.
 
IIRC all the socket bayonets for TDs were CW surplus, one of the reasons the M1888 was developed was because the supply of leftovers was drying up.
Click to expand...


I am not too sure of that. The bayonet for my Trapdoor, while similar in looks, is about 80% of the size of the bayonet for my '61 Springfield in the barrel sleeve area.

Notice that the sleeve on the trapdoor bayonet on the left is a little thinner than the '61 Springfield bayonet on the right. If they had reduced the diameter of the sleeve by swaging it smaller, the thickness of the sleeve would have been thicker instead.
IMG_5009-XL.jpg


Also there are subtle differences between the two.
IMG_5006-XL.jpg

IMG_5010-XL.jpg
 
Although the Allin conversion was designed to produce breechloaders from Civil War muzzleloaders, there were not a whale of a lot of them actually done, not relative to the hundreds of thousands of rifle muskets the Army must have been dreaming of getting some use out of.

Flayderman shows 5000 First Allin .58 rimfires and 25000 Second Allin 50-70s.
And 424 1867 Cadets.

From 1868 on, they used new barrels and receivers, Wartime locks seem to have run out by 1869 or 1870.
 
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