Where can I purchase an American made 45/70 trapdoor rifle?  Thanks for your answer Hank45

The United States Gov't made appoximately 565,000 of them from 1873 until 1892 at Springfield Mass. They are not too difficult to find on the used gun market in all conditions from a beater to a near mint specimen. There are always some on Gun Broker, etc. Track of the Wolf has them sometimes. Start looking and you may find plenty.

My suggestion is that you first find someone to let you shoot a carbine with a BP and a 500 gr bullet before commiting to buy one 

In it's day, guys liked to switch out the cavalry ammo with rifle ammo to watch the fun.

Frank

Was going to offer you mine, but.............. alas, is a rifle. Am building a sporter TD to replace it.

Al Fresca at (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) will likely have what you are looking for in an original. 

H&R made replica carbines and you can find them on GunBroker and such. They come in two flavors, a nicely engraved officer's model and a plain-Jane model. Priced accordingly. The 'real-deal' in a carbine (an original) will run several $hundreds more than an H&R, with are also nice rifles.

Some other folks listed here who might be of some help:
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Quote:


Am I to assume that your preference for an American made  trapdoor rifle is to exclude the Italian made reproductions of original U.S. Trapdoors ?

There was a time when Harington & Richardson (H&R) made reproduction Trapdoors in the 45-70 Gov't. chambering.  From my experience, I will tell you that the faster twist rifling in the H&R barrel was a plus factor that more than off-set the problem the H&R's had with their "cam latch" problem.  Actually, I overcame the H&R cam latch problem by purchasing and installing Pedersoli spare parts to replace the ineffective H&R design which was limited to that one single component, i.e., the cam attachment to the thumb latch shaft.

The H&R lock mechanism was an exact copy of the originals and was without fault.

Questions ?

C.M.M.

SchwarzStock wrote on Mar 24^th, 2014 at 5:39pm:


And shooting them from the prone position ....

Hi Hank45 !!!

Whatcha going to shoot ???  Paper, critter's or people???  Remember, these Gun's were designed to shoot into Group's of Folk's at a distance so it's all about volume / distance and while later model's used a great rear barrel sight, (Buffington) it was still not like the sight's used in today's competition.

Not to Pee on your thought's but if your looking to shoot for accuracy, spend your time and money on something that will give you longer resulte's and value for your system's thousand Dollar investment (and don't get hung up on BP) ... Getting so every time you send one of those round's down range, you can add a few buck's to the bang...

Good info on Al Fresca !!!  A good friend for many year's and will do you right !!!

Good Luck !!!

Ed...

For hunting with a 45-70, best bullets are around 300 gr.   The old timers figured this out 100+ years ago.  Usually a slight drop in accuracy, but flatter trajectory and better terminal performance.
See writings of AC Gould, e.g.

CHRIS
RGChristensen