In fact, Indians had short range repeating rifles, which was not good for them, and most of them eventually used bows and arrows.
Indian casulaties remained high during the battle - the last researchs showed that 200 Indians were killed on the battlefield alone. It contradicts recent theories about Custer being routed easily.
See
http://custer.over-blog.com/article-10191993.html
Sorry I don’t see the evidence. We know the command fell apart because the soldiers of various company commands were scattered all over the place. Only Keough’s command and a group around Custer retained cohesion meaning they fought and died together. How did they figure 200 Indian dead? The red pins told them so? That is abusrd. The Indian accounts all state that only a few dozen were killed seems reasonable. For every warrior killed, three or four would be wounded. So a casualty count around 100 is within the ball park.
Seems as though shooting from moving horseback would have been an impediment as well.
Rock Island Arsenal has several repeating arms that were attributed to the Little Bighorn battle. Lots of leather and brass-tacks and other accouterments, but the fact remains the Injuns had repeater rifles, and the Cavalrymen had single shots with substandard ammo. Ouch. Not sure how the weapons ended up at RI, probably because of the Senate investigation soon after. They have a first-class collection of firearms and cannon, prototypes and such.