The myth of the soldiers at the Custer battle being outgunned due to the Indians having Henry and 1866 rifles is just that, a myth. With a repeater at that time, it certainly had more fire power in the amount of rounds you could shoot in repetition, but there wasn’t much there when the bullet hit.
Custer was not out gunned because of the Leveraction rifles, but for one to think they had very little effect during the battle is certainly just refusing to accept data. During the archaeological surveys 2,665 cartridges, cartridge cases and bullets were recovered. The 44 Henry and 44-40 Winchester types represented 27% of those totals. The single shot 1873 Springfield 45-55 used by the Cav. represented only 54%...however, both combined represented 81% of the data recovered. I do not recall how much of that 54% was Custer's use of the rifle or the Indian's use after capture. So it is possible that of the 54% recovered data of the 45-55, some of that was more than likely Indian use as well. Custer's loss was a combination of many failures. What is more important than the weapons used, is where the artifacts were recover...creating a pattern, a chain of events to the eventual demise of Custer's men and pinning down Reno and Benteen's men 4 miles away.
Again, here is an overview of the details of the lever actions at Little Bighorn.
https://sites.google.com/view/44win...hester-history/little-bighorn?authuser=0
