Springfield Model 1873

About the Springfield Model 1873

The Springfield Model 1873 is a single-shot, breech-loading service rifle and the first standard-issue breech-loader adopted by the United States Army. Chambered in the powerful .45-70 Government cartridge, it is named for its hinged 'trapdoor' breechblock, which flips up and forward like a trapdoor to load a single cartridge. Designed at the Springfield Armory by Erskine S. Allin, it served as the principal U.S. infantry and cavalry arm through the Indian Wars era.

At the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, the trapdoor's soft copper cartridge cases could swell and tear when the gun overheated, jamming the breech and forcing troopers to pry spent cases out with knives. The same hinged-breechblock action had begun life as a thrifty Civil War conversion that turned obsolete muzzle-loading muskets into breech-loaders.

Springfield Model 1873 specifications

Produced in infantry rifle (32.6-inch barrel) and cavalry carbine (22-inch barrel) configurations. Early copper-cased cartridges were prone to expanding and jamming in the chamber, contributing to extraction failures cited in accounts of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.