1870 Carbine, at last!

For anything related to Trapdoor era U.S. martial arms collecting.

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daneal
Posts: 21
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2024 10:35 pm

1870 Carbine, at last!

Post by daneal »

After over half-century of searching for an 1870 50/70 carbine, I seem to have finally found one.
It came from the estate of a target shooter, so there were things that had to be undone, of course, but that's half the fun.
The previous owner was obviously an expert machinist-- he had built a clamp-on interchangeable aperture front sight that mounted above the brass front sight and stud. He had removed the rear barrel sight and affixed a windage-adjustable lollypop sight to the head of the tang screw. He evidently considered the glare of the Armory Bright barrel a detriment to accurate range work, so it was nicely blued. The excellent stock has been rubbed down, but not excessively.
Now that the blue is gone, this is a darn nice-looking carbine that seems pretty correct to me. Looks sorta bare though, without a barrel sight. Anyone have a few dozen narrow-bar 1870 sights lying around?

And, now what am I going to do evenings to keep myself out of trouble??
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Dick Hosmer
Posts: 544
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2023 7:05 pm
Location: Northern CA

Re: 1870 Carbine, at last!

Post by Dick Hosmer »

That's not going to be an easy find! To avoid the glaringly bare dovetail, i guess you could install a rifle sight temporarily - 90% of the people who looked at it wouldn't know the difference. And, even though the leaf IS different too, I'll bet you could grind/file/stone a bar down to look right from two feet away. Just trying to cheer you up - we both know that right is right, and wrong is still wrong, but it would certainly look better on the wall.
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