Special Guest Writer A.M. Beck

A.M. Beck, Palmetto Guards Burnside’s carbines are second only to Sharps in the number of single shot carbines issued during the war. Chances are fairly good that if you had an ancestor in the federal cavalry, at some point they carried a Burnside. So, why don’t we see more of them on the line at skirmishes? The main reason is that Burnsides are challenging to get on target. Except for that minor issue, they have a lot of appeal as skirmish carbines. The action works well, they don’t leak, cartridges rarely stick in the chamber and they load quickly on the line. Another advantage is that Burnsides are easy to find in skirmishable and collectable condition. That’s not just due to the large numbers delivered during the war, but also the fact that they require oddball, expensive ammunition. After 1865 they were mostly put aside and forgotten, which saved lots of them from the abuse that tended to be heaped upon other Civil War carbines. But… they have that well-deserved reputation for being picky about ammunition, especially bullet weight and design. A quick search of the N-SSA bulletin board will turn up many, many posts on the subject. The problem is usually ascribed to this carbine’s gain twist rifling. That is one of the reasons, but there is more to the story. As a freshly minted West Point graduate during the Mexican War, 2nd Lieutenant Ambrose Burnside was assigned to garrison duty and as a dispatch rider. This gave him plenty of time to ponder the shortcomings of Hall’s breechloaders. Those ruminations led him to devise his “improved” breechloader. The addition of a brass cartridge case to Hall’s pivoting chamber was a great idea. The changes Burnside made to the breech mechanism definitely were not. If the General’s carbine was ever to appear in a mechanical engineering text, it would probably be under the heading of “How Not To Do It”. Accuracy problems are built into the breech system. For any firearm to shoot accurately, firing forces must have a direct path from the chamber to the marksman’s shoulder, with rigid joints in between, and the lowest possible number of them. For instance, Hall’s chamber is supported at the front by two large lugs that would make any modern magnum rifle proud, and the action is solidly bedded in the stock. Burnside eliminated those locking lugs and added several joints. His chamber is supported by….not much. Firing forces in the Burnside action have two paths to the buttstock. One is through the link under the breechblock, forward to a lug at the bottom front of the receiver and eventually back to the joint between the receiver and buttstock. The other path is across a joint between the breechblock and the trigger guard assembly, then through the J bolt latch, into the receiver and finally the stock. The first path crosses four mechanical joints, the second crosses five. Most of those joints are not designed to lock together and form a solid connection. Several are held by screws that have a tendency to work loose with repeated firing. Each of these joints is a potential source of accuracy problems. The good news is that these shortcomings can be addressed, and once they are, a Burnside will break plenty of targets. The bad news is that anyone who makes Distinguished Skirmisher shooting a Burnside is probably in league with the Devil. The action just isn’t up to that level of accuracy. ------------Several of the steps below will make subtle changes to your carbine and are NOT recommended for a collectable grade gun. The Burnside shown here is a parts gun that happens to have a really good bore, but the collector value is about nil. Assuming that your carbine is in overall good shape, the first step in getting a Burnside to put rounds in the black is to check the barrel crown. The muzzle must be symmetrical with no nicks or dings. If that’s a problem the smiths on sutler’s row can fix it easily. The second step is to make sure all the screws are tight. This includes the two screws that secure the upper receiver tang and trigger plate to the stock, the screw that secures the upper tang to the receiver, the J bolt that secures the trigger plate to the receiver, the two screws that secure the breechblock to the guard/lever latch assembly, the latch screw in the trigger guard and the breechblock link lug at the bottom front of the receiver. Many of these screws tend to loosen during skirmishes, particularly the tang screws and the lever to breechblock screws. If any of these refuse to stay tight through a skirmish, apply low strength Loctite 222MS to the threads. 222MS allows removal with normal tools.

Lots of screws and pivot points to check for looseness For Burnsides without parts replaced. This will usually get you on target with the gun’s favorite load. However, it’s still a good idea to check for the problems described below. While Burnside’s products are nominally parts interchangeable, that’s not entirely the case. Replaced breechblocks in particular can be very hard on cartridge cases, and replaced latch parts can lead to a loose lockup. That brings up the question, how do you know if your Burnside has had parts replaced? Luckily for us, Burnside put assembly numbers on all the major parts. The number at the top front of the breechblock should match the serial number on the receiver. The floating block at the back of the chamber will have a number on the bottom surface, which will be different from the serial number. That should match the number at the back of the breech block. Most other parts will have the last 3 or 4 digits of the serial number stamped somewhere on them. If any of the breech parts have been replaced check very closely for loose lockup issues.

With the chamber empty it is normal for the breechblock to rattle around in the receiver. However, with a case in the chamber there should be minimal slop in the breech. When the latch/trigger guard is pushed front to back, the breech will move forward and backward along the axis of the barrel. This is Burnside’s equivalent to headspace in a modern firearm. It can’t really be eliminated, but it can be minimized. Check for wear in the hinge pin under the front of the receiver and the pivot bolt that connects the pivoting link to the breechblock. Usually replacing worn pivot points is all that’s required. A remote possibility is that the lever pivot lug at the bottom front of the receiver is loose where it screws into the frame. Amazingly, this lug is not an integral component of the receiver, it is a separate part that screws in. I have never seen one of these loose. If yours is, you will need to install a very thin steel shim in the joint to tighten it up. The most likely place to find looseness is in the J bolt and trigger guard latch lever. This area is subject to several different problems. First, the J bolt secures the trigger plate to the receiver and that joint needs to be tight. Second, the bolt has to index properly for the latch to lock. Third, the latch has to lock closed with no up and down looseness in the breech. All these have to happen at the same time. It is common for the J bolt to turn past alignment when it’s screwed down tight. A shim can be added under the flange to take up slack. You will need to make it from brass or steel shim stock. This bolt must lock the trigger plate down securely and align with the trigger guard latch when tightened. It should come up snug with four or five pounds push on the wrench. You don’t have to go overboard tightening.

J Bolt to Trigger Plate Shim Once the J Bolt is tight in the receiver, with a case in the chamber check for up and down play in the trigger guard/latch assembly. If it is loose, either the lever latch or the J bolt mating surface needs to be shimmed. Stresses are relatively high here, so the shim has to be steel and soldered in. A glued shim will not last even one skirmish. Shims can be soldered to either the locking face of the curved latching lever inside the trigger guard or the J bolt itself. Expect to do some fitting with jeweler’s files. It’s much easier to file a shim in the J bolt than the lever latch. Once the fit is close, apply JB’s Bore Lapping Compound or automotive fine valve lapping compound to the mating face of the latch. Work the latch back and forth to lap the joint. Once lapped, the breech should snap shut easily and have minimal play.

Shimmed J Bolt Latch Next, check buttstock bedding. After 150 years, stocks crack, shrink and warp. The stock must be tight at the front face where it bears against the receiver. Remove the lock and look through the wood to metal joint with a light on the far side. If you see light coming through, it needs to be bedded. This is another area to tread lightly. If your stock still has cartouches and assembly numbers (usually under the buttplate), get a reproduction stock and bed that. Save the original!

Bedding the stock Check the upper tang plate and trigger plate for good fit while you have the stock off. The metal parts need to fit tightly into the wood, but should not be under stress. If the tang screws bottom on the metal and you can still tighten them two or three more turns, these also require bedding. It’s best to do this in three steps, first the stock to receiver joint, then the upper tang and finally the trigger plate. It is possible to bed the trigger plate without disassembling the trigger, but you must have all the metal parts well coated with mold release and use a minimum amount of bedding compound near the trigger assembly. It is a good idea to take everything apart while the epoxy is still a little soft, just in case bedding compound got someplace it shouldn’t have. Check the lock plate fit when reinstalling the lock. The lock is an important part of the receiver to buttstock joint.

A poor fit here can allow the joint to flex when the carbine is fired. If the plate sinks deeper and deeper into the stock as you tighten the back screw, the lock needs to be bedded. Bedding is only required around the perimeter of the lock inletting. Be sure that the lock and the metal areas of the receiver inletting are well coated with mold release. Remove the mainspring and sear before bedding.

Where to bed the lock plate Finally, while not strictly necessary, you may want to tune the lock while you have it out. Dave France’s excellent article on this procedure is posted on the Northwest Territories website at; http://nwtskirmisher.com/usefullocks.shtml Finally, before putting your Burnside into service, check the chamber for rust, nicks and dents. Nylon cartridge cases are pretty tolerant of roughness, but brass cases really need a clean chamber for the action to close and cases to extract. If it is a little rough, the surface can be restored with a couple passes of lightly oiled 400 grit sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. Now that your carbine’s mechanical issues have been addressed, you will most likely have to work up a new “favorite load”. There is no substitute for range time in this process. Load development is beyond the scope of this article, but here are some comments to get you started. I have skirmished with three Burnsides, and worked on others. Each of them had a different favorite load. They all seem to like heavy bullets and light charges. The first one shot very well with 23 grains of GOEX 3F and the old Dixie hair curler mold (modified to add a sprue cutter). My current carbine likes 30 or 32 grains of Swiss (but not 29 or 31 grains) and Accurate Molds 56-390a, which casts at 400 grains in pure lead. Many skirmishers have had good luck shooting 0.560” round balls. One bullet that has never produced skirmishable accuracy for me is the 360 grain Rapine and its clones. The brass Burnside cases won’t take bullets much bigger than 0.560”. Unfortunately, some carbines have larger groove diameters. If yours is oversize, cast 0.560” bullets from pure lead and they will usually bump up enough to shoot well. Burnsides like lots of lube, but many “Burnside Bullet” molds don’t have sufficient grease grooves. Original ammo included a lube disk between the bullet and powder. Adding a thin disk of beeswax under the bullet can improve accuracy, especially for those shots late in a relay. Take notes! The Burnside page of my load development spreadsheet has twice as many entries as other carbines. Most of those loads didn’t work, but now I know what not to try again. Burnsides are definitely more of a challenging than other breechloaders to get shooting well, but with a little preparation these carbines will break their share of targets.

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