Springfield Model 1888 Trapdoor

About the Springfield Model 1888 Trapdoor

The Springfield Model 1888 Trapdoor is a single-shot, breech-loading service rifle chambered in .45-70 Government. It was the final production iteration of the Springfield 'Trapdoor' family that used Erskine S. Allin's hinged breechblock, distinguished from the earlier Model 1884 chiefly by its rod bayonet, which slides out from beneath the barrel and locks forward to form a thin spike bayonet that also doubles as a cleaning rod. The last single-shot rifle to enter regular U.S. military service, it equipped the Army into the 1890s before being superseded by the bolt-action Krag-Jorgensen.

Though many were still in Army inventories at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the black-powder Trapdoor's smoky signature put regular and volunteer troops still carrying it at a marked disadvantage against Spanish forces armed with smokeless-powder Mauser rifles.

Springfield Model 1888 Trapdoor specifications

Often catalogued alongside the Model 1884; the defining change of the 1888 was the adoption of the ramrod (rod) bayonet in place of a separate socket bayonet. Production ran at Springfield Armory roughly 1890-1893.