Trapdoor Springfield rifle 

So cool that you included the conversion animation. Great work!

Good animation. I own a trapdoor carbine myself. My wife gave it to me for my birthday. Cool wife.

It finally solved my mystery of how the hell these guns work(btw I really love that you went the extra mile of showing the conversion process)

Was doubtful at first but this is actually a perfect animation of the working parts 👏 well done

Ryan. The big game changer was the Prussian Dreyse needle gun ( introduced 1848). During the Austro-Prussian war of 1864 the Prussions, armed with breech loading Dreyse needle guns wiped out the Austrians who still had muzzle loading rifles. The French then developed the Chasspot breech loader. Now a breech loader could be fired more rapidly, and more importantly could be reloaded while under cover. Muzzle loaders required the solder to stand up (and stand still) to reload. The rest of the world then took note. "Oh dear, I have an armoury of 500,000 muzzle loading rifles, but an army with breech loaders can defeat us. What to do?' Either throw the muzzle loaders away and spend vast amounts of money (and time) designing and building a breech loader, or convert the muzzle loaders - much cheaper. In the US these were the trapdoor Springfields, in UK the Sneider conversion, and other countries follwoed the same approach.

I love this rifle. One of the best rifles ever made.

2:54 Thankyou for this part that perfectly answered the my question on how the hell the cartridges get fired.

Very informative videos for armourers, gunsmiths, and gun enthusiasts alike. The first two categories could use these as teaching material.

This is virtually the same as version published 9 days ago. I have just changed the way the cartridge is ejected in the last minute or so.

This is on that list of U.S.'s best, clever, and frugal retrofit decisions it done to update its gear in its history. It wasn't perfect. You can tell by looking at the video. The process of converting past guns into new has a negative effect on the longevity of the gun, creates unforeseen issues, and not every musket grabbed is going to be in the best condition. (They are converting used guns.) I would not be surprised each musket they used was the same either (might have had different specs) and this had issues. To me trapdoor in the grand scheme of things is another case of people being lucky. The conversion designer was very competent. He done stuff like this before. He knew what to look out for that will reveal being a big problem later. Somehow the guns managed to not suffer as severely from the typical expected problems like other countries experience when attempting the same thing. Most of the time they eventually wised up they were spending so much fixing the problems with the conversion they decide to just build a new gun, because it was proving cheaper in the long run. Others just keep avoiding it until it is too late. The U.S.A. certainly got their money worth using with these.

Peter, you are correct. I had hoped no-one would notice. Rob

Like that video visual is always better then some one telling you. If no smokeless powder a few years later the army probably would have kept them a bit longer great riffle in my opinion

worst part about is to think that in the usa black powder gun aren't classified as real firearm and this is so simple that almost everyone can do that you only need to have the tool some ammo for the gun and a old springfield musket or i even think that any other musket would do

This is what the creators of Napoleon total war thought a flintlock musket was

Could you make the Krag-Jørgensen Rifle with its groovy hopper? There doesn't seem to be there enough visualisations/demonstrations of that mechanism around.

Awesome animation! Very simple. But very well done and informative

Cool video, I thought this wasn't the video I was looking for until I saw the transition part

A very wonderful animation. It was very easy to understand. Please also exert yourself now. It was from Japan.

"Why are you dodging like this? They couldn't hit a elephant at them distance."

You need to put a warning, VB.. "Warning.. these videos are hypnotic for hardware nerds!"

Excellent animation. Good job.

I know that this video is over a year old now, but I just noticed that it seems as though you missed a step in the conversion process. The barrel was resleeved from .58" to .45" to accommodate the .45-70 round.

Trapdoor Springfield rifles can load much faster than traditional rifled muskets.

Interesting. I couldn’t figure out how the firing pin was striking the primer. I never considered it could be striking it at an angle.

Just a request or idea, maybe do a little video on the M1777 Charleville Musket using Napoleonic french drill? It would be very useful for teaching reenactors the details on how a flintlock musket works

Came for the gun stayed for the music.

This Gun literally has no popularity in media as I have never see it used in a single movie. One day I want to Animate a Character that uses this elegant weapon so that the Trapdoor Springfield gets the representation it deserves. I mean yeah it is awesome that its in Red Dead Redemption 2 but that not enough for me.

Good animation but one major flaw. The originals that were converted were all of the 3 bander length. The 2 bander full length version you showed wasn't adopted until the 1873 pattern. Also, the conversions trapdoor block used a bored through percussion nipple as the firing pin keeper so that in the event of the soldiers running our of the new self contained cartridges, they could take out the firing pin, pop the primer out of a fired case and then use the rifle as a muzzle loader simply leaving the empty cartridge in place and resume the older order of loading. This was of course when the were still using the .575 cartridge. The British Snider's did the same thing and even maintained the .577 snider cartridge for several decades after the snider was adopted just for that reason. They had millions upon millions of left over Minnie ball cartridges in storage and they didn't want to have to scrap it all. For both the Allin conversion and Snider's conversions, this was the case.

1873 Trapdoor rifle was also .50 caliber, not the .58 used by the muzzle loading Springfield. So they had to install a barrel liner and re-rifle it. Other than that, great video.

Easy to understand

holy crap thats so much better

I could probably build a trapdoor rifle chambered for 7.62x54R, using the same system for this.

looks good to me. I've fired a reproduction one and you now have it right.

Can you show the function of other breechloading conversions? Like the Snider? I've been studying some the the designs rejected by the British when they chose the Snider, and my favorite so far the the Mayall bolt action.

Excellent animation. I heard about your channel through C&Rsenal and their episode on the Lewis gun. Could you possibly do more rifles?

Nice gun sir

A weapon to rival metal gear!~!

Awesome video, the bullet that the 1863 shot should have been more appropriately called the Burton Ball as opposed to the Minnie ball. The Minnie ball used an iron cone in its base to expand and was more often a paper patched bullet with the patching being soaked in lube whereas the Burton version had a hollow base with slightly thicker side walls and grease grooves to hold the lube only. Side note: during the American war of Northern Aggression the very best ammunition that could be had was the .577 paper patched swaged Burton style balls that were manufactured in Birmingham England and brought in by blockade runners. It was so good, that the Confederate Army would allocate it only to be used by the sharp shooting units. While the Whitworth rifle was incredible, there weren't enough to go around to all of the sharpshooter so they held a trial to find the most accurate rifles and ammunition where the 2 band 1853 Enfield short rifle with progressive depth rifling and using the Birmingham made swaged ammo were almost as accurate as the Whitworth was with the advantage of not being as fussy as the Whitworth, the Confederate ordnance was ordered to set all of those rifles and ammunition aside just to go to the special units.

The needle guns such as the French Chess-pot had to replace the needle every 10 to 12 shots the bullets were pretty corrosive

Must have been cheaper than buying a whole new rifle.

Thanks a lot

1:32 if only the union army knew how to improve their weapons sooner like in the middle of the war the union army production turns Springfield rifled muskets into this, that would've been a huge improvement in weaponry.

Excellent video!

The animation is cool but the music seems a little out of place for a breech loading single shot rifle. Feels more 1980s than 1880s. Lol.

There is a mistake in animation with the loading the bullet in papaper is always rewersed to the outside you need to cut the paper where the bullet ends.

Небольшое замечание: тут показана не пуля Минье, а Пуля Петерса (она же "бельгийская пуля"). У Минье немного другая форма выемки и есть металлический колпачок.

There should be a third band on the musket.

👍

Springfield lore 😳

He customized his rifle like its 1862

Where’s Mississippi Queen?

Wasn't there a barrel sleeve to make it right for the smaller caliber?

We the Konyak's also known as head hunters from Northeast India still use those guns....there are lots who can make those guns...

the Little Bighorn scapegoat

1:04 what is that yellow cap and what does it do? I'm still new to gun tech history

Was wondering if you could muzzle load black power without a brass casing.

A nice presentation !

Springfield musket

Hello Mr. vbbsmyt, I'm Hưng, I'm a museum owner in Vietnam, I watched your videos and was very impressed, so I'm writing this comment to ask you for a 3D model of the springfield trapdoor for restoration purposes model. I hope you agree to this request

Need Mississippi Queen version.

Is the model available in CAD format and available for purchase ?

Oh yeah, that sounds good.

Someone needs to add this gun as a mod to left 4 dead 2 via steam workshop, trapdoor or not.

Can you do one of the Hall breechloading rifle? Flintlock or percussion?

So martini henry but worse?

nice

i can't tell the difference between 2:33 and 2:36 was it became bigger?

those weapons make me confuse because same model of the gun

Winchester and Spencer levergun, please..!

I love it

Why are you not loading wadding?

What was that yellow cap?

Model 1853, if I am not mistaken.

any chance of the Snider Enfield?

Awesome

I like it

The best

Its just An huge cap gun basically.

I love mine

What - no barrel liner ?

What conflict was this rifle use in?

Hey guys, strange question, but i am making a fantasy world that is based heavily off of the real world. With empires based off of Feudal Japan, Ancient China, India, Western Europe (during the early middle ages), Ancient Rome/greece, mongols, and Ancient China Which of these societies would this rifle look most fitting in?

The first gun was invented by any cuntry

Is seem like the the earliest type bolt action rifle, I see.....hmm

Nice

Very good 😍😍😍😍😁😁😁😎😎😎😎😎😎👍👍👍👍👍

Musket?

You were short a barrel band, should have been three.

"meow"

Super super example

Late reloading

why am i watching this

Ficou claro como se usa.

song from video ?

Why the reupload?

Cloudnt take the music sorry

Это чё, взяли старую капсульную винтовку и переделали под патрон?

1:32 anyone know that music???

Cool wife

good. :)