✅ SOLVED Is This Civil War Related?

[garren]

Found this Tuesday on the Confederate side of an artillery skirmish. It's brass and 7/8" long from tab to tab and about 3/16" thick. It could be farm related but I'm afraid to throw anything in the scrap bucket without proper ID. Does anyone recognize this as CW related? or a part off of something CW related?

 

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[TheCannonballGuy]

Garren asked:
> Does anyone recognize this as CW related? or a part off of something CW related?

Yes, it is civil war related... and it is a Military relic. Your find is a lockplate-screw retainer ring, made of brass, from an Enfield Rifle. Two iron screws passed through that rifle's wooden stock (from one side of it to the other) into corresponding holes in the wrought-iron lockplate, thus holding the lockplate firmly in position. The retaining-ring you found fit into the stock under the screw's flat head. The tabs on the ring keep it from turning. See part-#29 in the diagram below, showing all the parts of a British-made .577-caliber Model P-1853 Enfield Rifle. I should mention, this diagram was originally posted here in the What-Is-It? forum many years ago, by our esteemed ID-helper Creskol.

I should also mention, NOT ALL Enfield rifle parts we dig were lost (or discarded) by a Confederate soldier... nor were all Enfield rifle Minie-bullets we dig. Both sides in the war imported Enfield rifles (and Enfield bullets), but most were used by the Confederacy, because after the first year of the war the yankees had "tooled up" completely enough to manufacture as many of their own US Springfield rifles as they needed to.

 

[vpnavy]

...Yes, it is civil war related...Your find is a lockplate-screw retainer ring...

You always amaze me TCG!

 

[Icewing]

I'll admit I would have tossed it in my scrap brass and copper bucket.

Way to go TCG!

 

[garren]

That's awesome! Thank you TCG!

Garren asked:
> Does anyone recognize this as CW related? or a part off of something CW related?

Yes, it is civil war related... and it is a Military relic. Your find is a lockplate-screw retainer ring, made of brass, from an Enfield Rifle. Two iron screws passed through that rifle's wooden stock (from one side of it to the other) into corresponding holes in the wrought-iron lockplate, thus holding the lockplate firmly in position. The retaining-ring you found fit into the stock under the screw's flat head. The tabs on the ring keep it from turning. See part-#29 in the diagram below, showing all the parts of a British-made .577-caliber Model P-1853 Enfield Rifle. I should mention, this diagram was originally posted here in the What-Is-It? forum many years ago, by our esteemed ID-helper Creskol.

I should also mention, NOT ALL Enfield rifle parts we dig were lost (or discarded) by a Confederate soldier... nor were all Enfield rifle Minie-bullets we dig. Both sides in the war imported Enfield rifles (and Enfield bullets), but most were used by the Confederacy, because after the first year of the war the yankees had "tooled up" completely enough to manufacture as many of their own US Springfield rifles as they needed to.