Henry rifle is currently the best-known Civil War-era rifle

Carthage Press (Missouri) ^ | 5/8/06 | Bob Sheldon

[stainlessbanner]

Dixie Ping

[kalee]

ping

[LeoWindhorse]

well I sure like my lil Henry rifle , I shoot it most every day. Still made by the Henry rifle Co. of Brooklyn NY , in .22
with that nice old timey hex barrel and deeply concave butt stock .Same pretty brass work. Hard to beat and lots of fun. Fast shootin 2!

[vetvetdoug]

I was behind about six feet from a reenactor that was using a Henry Rifle loaded with blanks when it chain fired. The fellow lost a few fingers and the sound deafened the fellows next to him and the concussion affected my hearing for a good while. The Henry is one case where the blanks are more dangerous than the bullets.

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

http://www.auctionarms.com/search/displayitem.cfm?itemnum=7043162&aa=%20%20%20Henry

Above URL is for an 1865 Henry catalog.

[LeoWindhorse]

and here they are today :

http://www.henryrepeating.com/ourrifles.cfm

[PzLdr]

The Spencer was a lot better rifle. Heavier cartridge, quicker to load, and the loading mechanism was less prone to fouling with dirt.

[stainlessbanner]

Sounds like a good time! Plinkin' this way and that. You ought to be a deadeye with all that practice, LeoWindhorse

[advance_copy]

They still make 'em. Oh, man, I got to get me one of those.

[Phsstpok]

In Turtledove's universe the AK-47 has a bit more fame...

 

[LeoWindhorse]

feral chickens beware! ;^)

[CurlyBill]

I always thought the Whitworth was the best known... The North's Berdan Brigade was essentially disbanded following Gettysburg... in large part due to Southern Sharpshooters using Whitworths.

[LeoWindhorse]

this book is interesting only up until the Fall of Washington , thereafter it falls of the scale into dumb dumb dumb .

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Thanks for that URL, it also has gun dealers listed in your ZIP code.

[supercat]

I was behind about six feet from a reenactor that was using a Henry Rifle loaded with blanks when it chain fired. The fellow lost a few fingers and the sound deafened the fellows next to him and the concussion affected my hearing for a good while. The Henry is one case where the blanks are more dangerous than the bullets.

Chain fired meaning the rearward rounds in the magazine fired the forward ones? What sort of ammo, and what would make blanks more prone to that than bullets?

[vetvetdoug]

The blast blew the ammo tube open. I think the blanks were not sealed properly IMO and when one inadvertently fired the flash set off all of those in the magazine. Whatever happened, it was not a pretty site.

[lentulusgracchus]

I wonder if an 1860's gunsmith could have cobbled up an AK with the materials and techniques of the time? D'ya think?

AK's use Berdan-primed ammo.......center-fire would have been a bit radical for the time.....the iron sights would have been not much better than what was available, certainly no better than Creedmoore sights. Think the AK would be tough enough to stand up to period lead- and black-powder fouling? That gas chamber might not last long before filling up with crud.

[Phsstpok]

I wonder if an 1860's gunsmith could have cobbled up an AK with the materials and techniques of the time? D'ya think?

Turtledove makes a fairly good case that they could, given time.  And if not the smiths in the South, with their limited industrial base, then the smiths in the north.  He makes the analogy that if an Afghan gunsmith can manufacture AK copies with the crude tools he has in his Peshwar village then, eventually, an 1860s gunsmith could, once they knew it was possible.

Same thing applies to the powder and the clad bullets.   Once you know a thing can be done someone will figure out a way to reproduce it.  My guess is that it would have taken 10 years to produce a crude new autoloader based on the principles shown in the AK, and probably another 10 to get the powder.  I don't have a guess how much technology is involved in manufacturing jacketed bullets, but I'm betting that would come in the least time of all.

Right now I'm reading a somewhat similar series of books.  This starts with the books 1632 by Eric Flint and 1633 Eric Flint and David Weber (both available as free eBook downloads from Baen's free library).  The premise here is somewhat similar to Guns of the South.  In this case an entire West Virginia coal mining town and about 30 miles of surrounding countryside are switched with a similar sized chunk of Germany in the midst of the 30 years war (it happens, no real explanation except a vagure reference to a "cosmic shard").  This bunch of union coal miner hillbillies go out in their pick ups after this big flash happens to try to figure out what's going on.  The road suddenly ends in this hill that didn't used to be there.  They climb up over the hill and see some guys with long spears in odd outfits and funny metal hats sacking a primitive farm, torturing the farmer and raping his wife.  The leader of the group looks back and says "Bill, you got your hunting rifle back in your truck?"  You can guess the outcome of that little match up.

I'm on about the 7th book so far.  Lots of fun.  The trial of Galileo is particularly fun.  And what they do with the music over the loudspeakers and then the napalm to the inquisition guys in that castle.... <g>

They go into the tech a lot in the collections of short stories.  They have numerous articles where they discuss why they make certain tech choices, such as what type of ham radio set ups they go with because of the low sun-spot activity during this historic period.  There are tons of people contributing to this now and it's grown to be quite a fascinating read.  Allowing for the odd left turn of the story's premise the thing I like the best is how much real history they throw in.

This is what I read when I'm not reading technical manuals or IEEE papers.  I need something I can totally just not worry about.