1861 Springfield

Model 1861 Rifle-Musket
Type	Rifle musket
Place of origin	United States
Service history
In service	1861–1873
Used by	United States Confederate States of America
Wars	American Civil War American Indian Wars
Production history
Designed	1861
Produced	1861–1873
No. built	~1,000,000
Specifications
Weight	9 lb (4.1 kg)
Length	56 in (1,400 mm)
Cartridge	.58 Minié ball
Caliber	.58 in (15 mm)
Action	Percussion lock
Rate of fire	2–4 round/min
Effective firing range	100 to 400 yd (91 to 366 m)
Maximum firing range	500 to 620 yd (460 to 570 m)
Feed system	Muzzle-loaded

The Springfield Model 1861 was a Minié-type rifled musket shoulder-arm used by the United States Army and Marine Corps during the American Civil War. Commonly referred to as the "Springfield" (after its original place of production, Springfield, Massachusetts), it was the most widely used U.S. Army weapon during the Civil War, favored for its range, accuracy, and reliability.

The barrel was 40 inches long, firing a .58 caliber Minié ball, and the total weight was approximately 9 pounds. The Springfield had a general effective range of 200 to 300 yards but could reliably hit man sized targets out to 500 yards when used by marksmen, and used percussion caps to fire (rather than the flintlocks of the 18th century, the last U.S. flintlock musket was the Model 1840). Well-trained troops were able to fire at a rate of three aimed shots per minute while maintaining accuracy up to 500 yards, though firing distances in the war were often much shorter. The most notable difference between the Model 1861 and the earlier Model 1855 was the elimination of the Maynard tape primer for the Model 1861 (the Maynard primer, a self-feeding primer system, was unreliable in damp weather, and the priming mechanism was expensive and time-consuming to produce). Further, unlike the Model 1855, the Model 1861 was never produced in a two-banded "rifle" configuration.

The Springfield was aimed using flip-up leaf sights. The sight had two leaves, one for 300 yards and the other for 500 yards, and with both leaves down, the sight was set for a range of 100 yards. By contrast, the British Pattern 1853 Enfield, favored by the Confederates, utilized a ladder-sight system with 100 yard increments, using steps from 100 to 400 yards and a flip up ladder for ranges beyond 500 yards. While the Enfield's sights did allow finer range settings, the Springfield's simple leaves were more rugged and were less expensive to produce. The Enfield's sights extended to 900 yards (and further, on later models), compared to the 500 yard maximum range of the Springfield's sights. Realistically, though, hitting anything beyond 600 yards with either weapon was mostly a matter of luck. While the sight designs were very different, the two weapons were otherwise very similar, and had very similar effective ranges.

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