58 Roberts - 04/23/23
I am just finishing up a project for a fellow. He called it "the moonshiner's gun" as his great grandparents confiscated it from some moonshiners that set up shop on their back 40. It was in VERY rough shape. I knew nothing about general Roberts before this came to me. The 58 Roberts is an 1861 Springfield musket, that has been converted to black powder cartridges - the 58 Roberts cartridge. This one happened to be a whitnyville contract gun. I bought a paperback on general Roberts breach loading rifles just for this job. At any rate, I told the fellow that the rifle was worth a bit, even as parts, but he said nope! I'm keeping it, and not only do I want it to look good, I want to shoot it. So I had to cut a new stock from a walnut slab that I was very blessed to get. My 75 year old neighbors grandfather cut the tree down with an axe before he was born! He still had a few slabs kicking around. I had to find some barrel bands, a bayonet, ram rod, barrel band springs, and do some welding on the firing pin and bolt face. Make a couple springs. THEN I had to make ammo. Holy smokes! Could have had custom brass made, but I used 24 ga. Magtech brass. Could have got custom dies too, but found a set of 577 snider dies, and after some calculations, I took some material off the bottom of them, and worked like a charm. Had to make some shot cards, and get out the cornmeal, and presto. Loaded miniballs. They shot pretty good. Can't wait to see the owners face when he sees it. Fun project!