Why Won’t My Burnside Shoot?
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. 50 Skirmish Line Summer 2022
