Guns & Outdoors Forum

It's not everyday that a customer brings in the predecessor to the modern breech loading cartridge ammunition. He bought it for $200 from a pawnshop. I'm not sure where he got an original round from but you can see the strange ice cream cone shaped brass.

It was missing a mainspring and the hammer stirrup, along with having the stock broken right above the lock. Looking online, nobody makes an aftermarket main spring for these but I found that a Sharps spring is pretty close so I ordered one and adapted it to work after making a new stirrup.

Then I patched in a piece of walnut and spent some time with a chisel and got a perfect fit. The only evidence of the patch is the seam line but it matches pretty well. I also put in a period correct looking hammer screw and got rid of that aluminum abomination that was in it. He was pretty happy when he picked it up. I also made him 5 rounds after finding the brass online for $9 a piece and a member of a muzzleloading forum that I belong to was kind enough to send me 5 lead cast bullets for it so it was easy to fill the cases with some FF powder and seat the bullets.

Believe the rounds for that are called choads

CPJ 2.0 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 12:14 am Believe the rounds for that are called choads

Wow! Nice work and a solid pickup by your customer

So to load it, do you push the cartridge rear ward into a breach chamber?

PFD45 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 1:19 am So to load it, do you push the cartridge rear ward into a breach chamber?

It has a tilt out breech block that accepts the round and then locks back into place. It's a pretty ingenious design to be honest.

Wambli Ska wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 12:34 am Wow! Nice work and a solid pickup by your customer

Thank you.

Wow great restoration work!! Another saved!

Nice work getting her back in the fight. If I recall correctly, Old Ron has a Burnside as well.

sakodude wrote: ↑Fri Sep 27, 2024 2:34 am Nice work getting her back in the fight. If I recall correctly, Old Ron has a Burnside as well.

I know he has/had some brass cases for one. He sent me one for my cartridge collection a few years ago

That is awesome! Nice work, and a cool gun.

Played with Maynards, paper cartridge Sharps, and the French Chassepot needle rifle - - haven't fiddled with a Burnside yet, but that's one of the more unique solutions to headspacing you're going to find. Cool era to study, this Period of Prototypes.

I believe Dixie Gun Works has reloadable "shells" for the Burnside. Good work on the stock; you can hardly see the replacement.

Good match of the wood, great restoration! Interesting old rifle. That would be a fun one to play with!!

Thanks all. I definitely was tempted to fire it, just to say that I did but being that the ammo is rare as it is, I obviously didn't. Also, the bore of that thing was exceptionally nice for how poor the overall appearance of the exterior was.

I don’t think k I could have helped myself. No way to stop me from “test firing” the repair

Nice work!
Just curious what type of steel was in early vintage firearms? That does not appear to have been blued and there doesn’t look like case hardening.