Trapdoor Rifles

There is a trapdoor, SN 229205, listed on GunBroker auction 1053727734 which was issued toJohn A. S. Johnson, a member of CO. E, 6TH Virginia Infantry, Colored. Pages from the company book of the period show the serial, and also the serials of the rifles issued to a large number of other soldiers of that Company in 1898.
If someone has the patience and eyesight to closely examine the pages shown in pics relating to the auction, they can probably make out 30 or so SNs along with the names of the soldiers who were issued them.
Most seem to fall into the 229000 to early 230-235000 range. I have neither the patience nor the eyesight to chase this little mine of information.
I suspect that examining the Company books of that regiment and its sister "immune" regiments of the Span-Am War might reveal hundreds of SNs and the names of the soldiers receiving them. The content of the books are apparently available in the archives if someone knows how to get at them.

Don is correct, the Company Record Books are a fertile source for serial number data, and the late Frank Mallory diligently mined those for many years as the source for data in the SRS database. There are 170 numbers from the 6th Virginia Volunteer Infantry in the SRS database (including 229205), thanks to Frank's many hours finding the documents, and squinting at the sometimes barely legible handwritten records to extract the numbers.

I believe the seller of this rifle is someone who diligently chases SRS listed arms at auctions for resale and then gets the Archives info to sell as a package. I applaud his efforts, and the quality of the package he puts together, and the quality of his description on GB. IMHO, his BIN price of $1550 is fair given the DOCUMENTED history of this arm, even though more than one in similar condition with no history might be worth.

Talking with other researchers, there is not likely to be [m?]any additional numbers to be found in those records.
Although all companies kept such records while in service,they were not deemed to be permanent records required to be turned in and kept forever. Experience has shown that even within one regiment Company Record books have survived for some companies, but not others within that regiment, and some regiments kept none.

Checking for the existence of such a record, and then gaining access to it at the Archives requires time and patience, or paying for someone else's time and patience. With only 170 numbers found for the 6th Virginia, that suggests that probably only two company's records had serial numbers, but the only way to find out would be to pull the books for all 10 (or 12?) companies. Subject to limits on the number of items the will bring out at one time, so it may take several cycles (or a couple days) to get all 10 or 12 books to find 170 numbers!

Reportedly the detail in such records varied considerably, with some extremely detailed, others pretty basic with only minimum required info (e.g.- one company may only list numbers of all arms assigned, while another will note the number associated with a specific soldier.

In one case, a volunteer Company ended up recycling the company book from a regular unit, leading to massive confusion for Mallory as to which numbers belonged to which unit, as they were armed with different types of weapons, and typically the weapons are only listed as "rifle" not a specific make, caliber and model.

"Math is hard" but sometimes history is even harder! And, a lot more fun.