Springfield Model 1870 Trapdoor Carbine

About the Springfield Model 1870 Trapdoor Carbine

The Springfield Model 1870 Trapdoor Carbine is a single-shot, .50-70 Government breech-loading carbine built at the U.S. Springfield Armory using Erskine S. Allin's hinged trapdoor breechblock. A shortened cavalry version of the Model 1870 rifle, it fitted a 22-inch barrel, a saddle ring and bar, and a rear sight graduated for mounted use. Only a few hundred were produced in 1871, making it one of the rarest of the martial trapdoor carbines and a transitional design between the .50-70 conversions and the later .45-70 Model 1873.

The Model 1870 carbine occupies an unusual footnote in U.S. martial arms: chambered in the aging .50-70 just as the Army was moving to standardize the .45-70, only a few hundred were ever built. Its rarity and the single ESA cartouche make surviving examples among the most sought-after trapdoors by collectors.

Springfield Model 1870 Trapdoor Carbine specifications

Produced in extremely limited numbers (roughly 341 to 361 carbines) between April and December 1871; stocks bear the single ESA cartouche and the carbines were not serial numbered.