Spencer carbine M1865,.50 caliber.
Well, the story about this interesting system should start with a story about his designer, who at the time of the creation of his famous carbine was barely 20 years old! The typical Connecticut Yankee Christopher Miner Spencer was born in 1833 into a poor family. And so poor that young Crete (that was his name in childhood) could not get education, and he was forced to learn everything on his own. For 12 years, he left his home and entered the apprenticeship of the Connecticut hero, consummate gunsmith and shooter from the then equally famous "Kentucky rifle" - Josiah Hollister, who was known for making weapons to George Washington himself. He taught Crete a lot, and also infected with a passion for hunting, in which he excelled and which he practiced until old age.
Christopher Spencer in his youth.
In 1854, Spencer began working at Samuel Colt's factory in Hartford, but then went to work for Robins and Lawrence, whose firm produced Sharps rifles. And now, having studied this rifle, Spencer thought that its design fully allows the possibility of turning it into a weapon from which it will be possible to shoot, without bothering with the long and troublesome procedure of reloading it. In the rifle itself, he was captivated by the simplicity of the design: the bolt, which moved vertically in the grooves of the receiver, controlled by a long lever, convenient to use, but made in the form of a separate part that went around the trigger bracket.
Diagram of the Sharps rifle device.
The work was arguing, and already on March 6, 1860, Christopher Spencer received a patent for his invention - a magazine rifle - and a "Spencer carbine". Outwardly, this weapon looked like the most common single-shot rifle with a bolt controlled by a lever bracket. But he had a "zest": inside the butt there was a magazine in the form of a tube with a spring inside, in which seven rounds were inserted one by one bullets forward. At the same time, the spring was compressed, and then, in the process of reloading, pushed them out of it one by one to send the bolt into the chamber. It was necessary to reload the carbine by pulling down the lever under the receiver, which, unlike the Sharps system, was made in the form of a trigger bracket. The hammer, however, was not automatically cocked; it had to be cocked manually before each shot. It was possible to store pre-loaded magazines in specially designed tubular cases that could hold 6, 10 and 13 magazines.
Diagram of the Spencer carbine device
For firing, they used Smith and Wesson cartridges of the 1854 model with a copper sleeve and a sharpened pure lead bullet. The first carbines were.56-56, but the actual bullet diameter was.52 inches. The case contained 45 grains (2.9 g) black powder, and used ammunition of calibers.56-52,.56-50 and "wild cat".56-46. This should be understood in such a way that at that time the calibration of bullets was somewhat different from that adopted later and had two designations. The first number - showed the diameter of the sleeve, the second - the diameter of the bullet in the place where it entered the rifling of the barrel. The most popular were carbines of.52 or 13.2 mm caliber. It should be noted that the.56-56 cartridge was almost as powerful as the cartridges for the largest-caliber.58 caliber musket of the American army, and therefore was distinguished by high destructive power.
"Spencer" immediately showed itself as a very reliable and rapid-fire weapon, from which it was possible to fire at a rate of fire exceeding 20 rounds per minute. Compared to conventional primer rifles, which gave 2-3 rounds per minute, this was, of course, fantastic. Nevertheless, the lack of effective tactics of application made it difficult to appreciate it. Ill-wishers pointed out that when shooting, so much smoke was generated that it was difficult to see the enemy behind it, and that the situation on the battlefield would end up being the same as if the soldiers were standing in dense fog, and therefore there would be no point in fast shooting.
Spencer M1865 carbine with an open bolt. Above are cartridges and a magazine.
A weapon capable of firing several times faster than existing single-shot carbines would also require a significant restructuring of supply lines and would create a greater burden on already congested railways, requiring tens of thousands more mules, wagons and steam locomotives. In addition, for the money that one Spencer carbine cost, it was possible to purchase several Springfield rifles, which was also not in his favor.
Spencer's infantry rifle.
On the other hand, the Spencer's advantage was its ammunition, which was waterproof and could withstand long-term storage and transportation in shaking carts. Meanwhile, the experience of the war showed that the same, for example, paper and linen ammunition for the Sharps rifle, transported in wagons by rail or after long storage in warehouses, were often damp and therefore turned out to be spoiled. Spencer's ammunition had no such problem.
The principle of operation of the mechanism of the Spencer carbine: extraction of the spent cartridge case and the supply of the next cartridge.
The principle of operation of the mechanism of the Spencer carbine: the bolt is closed and locked, the hammer is cocked.
The war between the North and the South created an excellent market for weapons of sometimes dubious quality in the country, and Spencer, who believed in the high combat characteristics of his model, hastened to enter it as soon as possible. In the summer of 1861, at Chickering's Boston factory, he placed an order for the first prototypes of his carbine, and then began looking for a way to the White House. Fortunately for him, his neighbor in Washington was a friend of the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, who helped Spencer get an audience with the minister. Welles immediately ordered a comparative test of his carbine, comparing it to Henry's rifle. The result of the competition was the first government order for 700 carbines for the US Navy.
American poster showing samples of Spencer's rifles and carbines. From top to bottom: rifle for the Navy with a yatagan bayonet, infantry rifle, "big carbine", "small carbine", sporting rifle.
It is believed that the first shot at an enemy with a Spencer carbine was fired on October 16, 1862, during a skirmish near Cumberland, Maryland. The carbine was used by a friend of its creator - Sergeant Francis Lombard of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment. Soon other mobilized soldiers began to buy carbines at their own expense. Deliveries of carbines to the fleet began in December 1862. All 700 pieces were made in six months, after which the Mississippi Airborne Brigade was armed with these carbines, and Spencer began to seek an extension of the contract with the federal army, although the rate of fire of these weapons still caused great doubts among the federal generals.
Carabiner and shop.
The first commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Union, General Winfield Scott, turned out to be the most decisive opponent of arming the soldiers of the northerners with Spencer carbines, because he believed that this would only lead to a useless waste of ammunition. However, Spencer managed to get an appointment with Abraham Lincoln himself, and he personally tested his carbine, was very pleased with it and immediately ordered it to begin production for the army. With this sanction of the Supreme Commander, his victorious march began on all fronts of the internecine war in the States.
Receiver. Right view.
First of all, Spencer carbines entered the elite units of the Army of the Potomac - the United States Riflemen, which made up the brigade of Colonel Hiram Berdan.
Receiver. View from above.
From the middle of 1863, not only the elite, but also the ordinary infantry regiments of the northerners began to arm his magazine rifles. There are known cases of their use in the Battle of Gettysburg, in the "Battle of Hoover", where the "Lightning Brigade of Colonel John T. Wilder" armed by them operated very effectively, as well as in other places. They performed well in the Battle of Hanover, in the Chattanooga Campaign, during the Battle of Atlanta and in the Battle of Franklin, where the Northerners inflicted heavy casualties on the Southerners with their help. Well, the last "military" Spencer carbine entered service on April 12, 1865.
View of the reloading lever. The internal mechanism is well protected from contamination.
In the Battle of Nashville, 9,000 horse-drawn riflemen armed with Spencer carbines, under the command of Major General James Wilson, outflanked General Hood's left flank and attacked him from behind, subjecting his troops to deadly shelling. Incidentally, the assassin of President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, also had a Spencer carbine with him at the time he was captured and killed.
Aim.
In the late 1860s, Spencer's company was sold to the Fogerty Rife Company and eventually to Winchester. After that, Oliver Winchester stopped producing Spencer carbines, and sold the remaining stocks for firewood in order to get rid of the only standing competitor. Many Spencer carbines were later sold to France, where they were used during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Despite the fact that Spencer's company went out of business in 1869, cartridges for his carbines were produced in the United States even in the 1920s.
Stock and magazine with a characteristic protrusion for removing it from the socket.
We can say that the Spencer of 1860 became the first American magazine rifle, and produced in the USA in more than 200,000 copies at once by three manufacturers from 1860 to 1869. It was widely and successfully used by the Union army, especially the cavalry, although it did not completely replace the old single-shot samples that were in use at that time. The Confederates sometimes captured them as trophies, but since they could not manufacture cartridges for it due to the lack of copper, their ability to use it was severely limited.
Butt plate and magazine protrusion
