Buffalo Arms is currently selling loaded obsolete black powder cartridge rifle ammunition. One caliber of interest to Civil War shooters is the 56-50 Spencer round made for use in the Armi Sport The ammunition is loaded with Swiss black powder and .513 inch 350 grain flat nose bullets (item#513350 in the catalog) and properly head stamped brass (item #STR5650 in the catalog). The components are available separately as well, for those who want to load their own .56-50 ammo. I do not know if these cartridges can be used in other
We carry a very large inventory of Colt and Civil War firearms including muskets, carbines, rifles and accoutrements. Our inventory of historic antiques and firearms begin at the early collectors level and range all the way up to the advanced collector and investors level.
Spencer conversions or reproductions, so you might want to check with the company on that. All ammunition is shipped from Buffalo Arms via UPS or FedEx Ground. So be sure you have a physical shipping address on your order, since UPS and FedEx will not deliver to a Post Office Box.
This subject is not a Civil War topic, but of interest to the black powder shooter who is also a fan of earlier arms, as most of us are. When I was a kid, I used to badger my parents to take me on vacations to historical sites, including Fort William Henry, Fort Niagara, Gettysburg, and Williamsburg. One interesting feature of Fort Niagara was the colonial era living history person armed with a Model 1873 Springfield trapdoor rifle. Even
by Joe Bilby
as a 12-year-old, I called that out.
What fascinated me most at 1950s Williamsburg was much truer to the era. I was smitten by the hundreds of original flintlock muskets in the armory, and then the gun shop, where craftsmen were producing accurate copies of original 18th century arms using original 18th century style tools and techniques. A friend recently sent me a link to a YouTube video, made in 1969 and narrated by then iconic newsman David Brinkley, detailing the fascinating work of the Williamsburg craftsmen. These guys literally worked from scratch, making a barrel and rifling it. These guns cannot really be called “reproductions.” Perhaps “re-creation” would be a better title. Every detail of the process is filmed and explained. The video can be seen at:
h t t p s: / / m. y o u t u b e. c o m / watch?v=qTy3uQFsirk.
Speaking of YouTube, one channel I heartily indorse is capandballeu’s cap and ball films. The creation of Hungarian shooter and muzzle loading expert Balázs Németh, aka Capandball, the channel is a treasure trove of black powder shooting videos. Most recently Balazs profiled a stadia range finder he is making that replicates one manufactured during the Civil War.
As I have noted, in columns and books numerous times, formal marksmanship training, although recognized as a necessity in European armies, and encouraged by American officers who copied British and French manuals in an effort to stimulate such training on this side of the Atlantic, was seldom considered as part of the training regimen in the Civil War. If you could load a musket and pull a trigger, you were good to go, at least in the earlier part of the war.
Unfortunately, even many officers were clueless regarding firearm ranges. At Gettysburg a staff officer rode up to the 12th New Jersey Infantry, positioned at the Inner Angle’s wall, armed with smoothbore muskets, and instructed the regiment to open fire at the Confederates, advancing in Pickett’s Charge, when “they reached the road” around 200 yards from the Twelfth’s position. My own testing of smoothbores, firing the standard “buck and ball” charge at 100 yards, resulted in .69 caliber balls hitting at various points on a backstop berm, and the buckshot hitting the ground about 75 yards from the shooters.
Many of the Jerseymen had loaded their muskets with a dozen or more buckshot taken from disassembled cartridges, so had the Twelfth opened up at 200 yards, much of the fire would have been wasted. The regiment ignored the officer, waited, and then stood up from behind the stone wall to fire into the 26th North Carolina at point blank range. The fire was quite effective.
Even rifle muskets, with their superior accuracy and range, had to, beyond 100 yards or more, be accurately sighted, which, due to the trajectory of the projectile, required a shooter who could correctly estimate distance. The stadia range finder was the best instrument to use as a range determinant in a fixed combat situation. These artifacts are rare today, most likely because few were made. But if you want to check range the old-fashioned way, or your historical impression is as a company commander or the best shot in your outfit, you might want to get one.
Reproduction stadia are now available from Balazs Nemeth. Nemeth has a Facebook page as “Kapszli.hu – Capandball.eu”
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along with his YouTube channel with some great videos, especially for Civil War buffs, as he test fires weapons that were imported by North and South in large numbers during the war.
One interesting aspect of this story for me was that when I contacted Balasz for a high definition photo of the stadia he is producing, he mentioned that I had been one of his early inspirations to get into the muzzle loading shooting game. About twenty years ago he had purchased my book Civil War Firearms, which he enjoyed. If you want to see a demonstration of how to use the stadia, I recommend checking it out on Balazs’ YouTube channel at: