Anon04/15/26, 17:09No.65078493
I received an original Springfield Trapdoor carbine from my grandfather. The story is that his own grandfather got it from an Indian when they were living in Oklahoma, whose own father/grandfather/whatever passed it down to him after taking it off a dead cavalryman in battle. Serial number and condition makes it possible, so that's what I'm sticking with. It was not well cared for by the godless red savages, so it has some pitting in the chamber that warps brass on anything but the lowest end of trapdoor loads. Still recoverable brass, but I wouldn't use them for a different rifle after that. Otherwise, it has very mild pitting in the middle of the barrel that doesn't seem to affect anything. After some experiments, I've sadly concluded that although I can consistently ping 3 inch targets at 100 yards with smokeless rounds, it handles black powder cartridges so poorly that I struggle to even hit a full-sized silhouette at just 50 yards. I tried it with Swiss BP, the same container I've been using to run comparisons with my homemade powder, so I know it's good. It seems any amount of the stuff produces an extreme drop in accuracy, to the point that even smokeless won't shoot right until after I thoroughly clean the fouling out and put put a few smokeless through it again. I'm blessed with what I have, but it's unexpected and disappointing to not get to run black powder through it. The crack of smokeless doesn't live up to the boom of BP for me anymore.
