✅ SOLVED Solved: British-made Enfield model-1853 rifles buttplate

[cdsieg]

Solved: British-made Enfield model-1853 rifle's buttplate

If it is a grenade cap, any ideas on the age of the item? Also any thought on the other items. Thanks!

 

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[cdsieg]

Re: Grenade Cap? Bent thing with holes and numbers

Here are some more photos, bigcypress... the towel is blue, apparently too light of blue, but it is not White! LOL
This item has three holes, weighs 0.83 ounces and if it were not bent it would be about 8 inches long. Now with new photos and the other information... do I still have what you have been saying I have, or now that you can see it better it is nothing more than an iron shoe? LOL

 

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[TheCannonballGuy]

Re: Grenade Cap? Bent thing with holes and numbers

Cdsieg wrote:
> Now with new photos and the other information... do I still have
> what you have been saying I have, or now that you can see it better
> it is nothing more than an iron shoe?

Your photos show that the object does indeed have three holes (for screws which held it onto the rifle's wooden stock), so it is definitely what we've told you it is -- a civil war era British-made Enfield model-1853 rifle's buttplate, with a distinctive number-marking which means it was imported across the Atlantic ocean to America during the civil war years.

By the way... it is made of brass, not iron. (ALL of the Enfield model-1853 rifle buttplates were made of brass -- not iron.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Grenade Cap? Bent thing with holes and numbers

Great ID work, Cannonball Guy!!!

Buckles

Not me too? I thought this was one of my better IDs.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Grenade Cap? Bent thing with holes and numbers

Here are some more photos, bigcypress... the towel is blue, apparently too light of blue, but it is not White! LOL
This item has three holes, weighs 0.83 ounces and if it were not bent it would be about 8 inches long. Now with new photos and the other information... do I still have what you have been saying I have, or now that you can see it better it is nothing more than an iron shoe? LOL

Its not a shoe. Its exactly what I thought it was and CannonballGuy, BuckleBoy, Coinmaster and some others verified it. CBG is very knowlegable on CW artifacts. Its a buttplate from the Civil War rifle I posted in reply #7, most likely Confederate.
Its a very nice find and thats why I sent you an email to congratulate you as soon as I realized what you had...

The buttplate screws into the wood where the rifle butt goes against the shoulder in a shooting position as circled in red..
Btw the pictures are much better.

 

[cdsieg]

British-made Enfield model-1853 rifle's buttplate

Well, I guess I have something really cool!
Thank You ALL for all of the time you donated to this topic!
I plan on leaving this with the land owner, but I am hoping they will want me to donate it to the local museum. If they want to display it here that would be great otherwise I prefer it to be left with the museum. I think history belongs where others can see it and that being said, I know it does not belong back in WI with me when I go home!

But now back to the Cap? That some have suggested that it is a bearing cap from a driveshaft u-joint, or something on those lines.
I am including a couple of photos of grenade caps I found on line, is the inside of the cap some kind of insignia? Or is it a bearing cap?
I googled the "Made in the USA 11" but can't seem to find anything pertinent.

Please give me your thoughts.

Thanks bigcypress, I will mark it solved!!!!

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Grenade Cap Unsolved? (Solved: British-made Enfield model-1853 rifle's buttplate

Its a modern driveshaft U-joint cap as IDed by Snoopy.. NOT grenade.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Grenade Cap? Bent thing with holes and numbers

Your guess is correct, the brass buttplate is definitely from a British-made .577-caliber Enfield Model-1853 rifle, imported by the Confederacy through the yankee naval blockade. (However, the yankees also imported many thousands of them.) Here's a photo of one marked similarly to yours, from my photo-folder of civil war era gunparts.

CBG did the Yankees use a similar serial number system (A, B, etc) by engraving the butt plate ? I notice many of them are found blank.

 

[TheCannonballGuy]

Re: Solved: British-made Enfield model-1853 rifle's buttplate

No, the yankees did not use that numbering-system on Enfield Rifle buttplates. It was applied by the Exporter in Britain. Long ago, I read a lengthy article on the civil war Enfield rifles which said it was only applied on Enfields being sent to the Confederacy. Unfortunately, I cannot currently find that article. But I think it is correct, because the majority of Enfield buttplates we dig on civil war battlefields have no marking at all on them. Seems like we'd find a significant number of these specially-marked ones in yankee-army sites, but we don't. On that note, it's worth mentioning that the State of Massachusetts purchased several thousand Enfield rifles for use by its civil war troops, and marked those Enfields' buttplates with the letters "MA." Those MA-marked Enfield buttplates do not have the British-export numbers on them.

In case you are wondering... I think there are two reasons we have not found a large quantity of the specially-numbered Imported Enfield buttplates in Confederate sites.
1- A great many of the Enfield rifles used by Confederates were captured in battle from the yankees. For example, at the siege of Vicksburg, after an attack on the Confederate trenches in which the yankees lost thousands of troops, the Confederate soldiers taunted the besieging yankees by asking them "Do y'all want to get rid of any more Enfields?"
2- As the yankee naval blockade tightened, cutting off shipments from Britain, several Confederate arsenals began producing their own nearly-exact copies of the British Enfield rifle. Those would of course not have the British-Import numbers on the buttplate.

By the way... the "A" below the numbers on Cdsieg's buttplate means "10,000-plus." In other words, 3396A means 13,396. The buttplate Engraver seems to have decided that a five digit number would not fit properly onto the buttplate's tang.

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Solved: British-made Enfield model-1853 rifle's buttplate

Great information CBG backing up my research that this was a Confederate buttplate.

Cindy, write the story for Todays Finds to share it with the rest of the forum. I myself would like to hear the details.

 

[BuckleBoy]

Re: Grenade Cap? Bent thing with holes and numbers

Great ID work, Cannonball Guy!!!

Buckles

Not me too? I thought this was one of my better IDs.

Certainly you too. By the time I read the whole post, I had forgotten who first suggested the ID. It is really well done by everyone involved. I had no idea the piece was CW era; thought it might be earlier, but felt strongly about a military connection for it.

Cheers,

Buckles

 

[Bigcypresshunter]

Re: Grenade Cap? Bent thing with holes and numbers

Great ID work, Cannonball Guy!!!

Buckles

Not me too? I thought this was one of my better IDs.

Certainly you too. By the time I read the whole post, I had forgotten who first suggested the ID. It is really well done by everyone involved. I had no idea the piece was CW era; thought it might be earlier, but felt strongly about a military connection for it.

Cheers,

Buckles

CannonBallGuy is so good on CW era items, he got credit for an ID he didnt make LOL and I can certainly understand that because he sure is CW knowlegable. 8) That sometimes happens to me but I always make sure to go out of my way to correct it when it does. The link I found explained it all very well with supporting pictures.

 

[cdsieg]

I am just glad it was solved!