The Schofield Board’s Rifles

In a previous post, I gave an overview of the rifle trials between 1870 and 1873, part of the government’s effort to standardize on a new service rifle using a breechloading design. This effort can be divided into two parts delineated by their distinct oversight boards – the first, established under General Orders No. 72, and headed by Major General Schofield; the second, established under General Orders No. 58, and headed by Brigadier General Terry.

Under Major General Schofield’s board, there were 34 distinct rifles submitted for review, vs. some 88 samples received under Terry’s board. I draw this Schofield list from the report offered by the Board in Ordnance Memoranda 11, and have excluded withdrawn samples and duplicates. I have numbered these entries for the sake of accurate reference within this post, but the original list in the report is not numbered.

This list would serve as a fine collection today by any measure.

1. Remington rifle, caliber .50″, No. 286 from Springfield Armory
2. Springfield breech-loading rifle musket, caliber .50″, model 1868, from Springfield Armory
3. Peabody (Wessely) rifle, caliber .42″
4. Peabody (self-cocking) rifle, caliber .42″
5. Peabody (Spanish) rifle, caliber .42″
6. Peabody (Roumainian) rifle, caliber .45″
7. Peabody (Springfield) rifle, caliber .50″
8. Remington rifle, caliber .42″, No. 2
9. Remington rifle, caliber .42″, No. 3, sword bayonet
10. Remington rifle, caliber .50″, No. 4
11. Remington rifle, caliber .51″, No. 5, triangular bayonet
12. Remington (Spanish) rifle, caliber .43″
13. Remington (Ryder) rifle, caliber .50″
14. Remington (modified) rifle, caliber .50″
15. Robert’s (Springfield) rifle, caliber .50″, U.S. bayonet
16. Robert’s (Springfield) rifle, caliber .50″, No. 4, U.S. bayonet
17. Robert’s (Jackson’s improvement) rifle, caliber .50″
18. Robert’s (Starr’s improvement) rifle, caliber .50″
19. Robert’s center-lock rifle, caliber .50″
20. Berdan’s rifle, caliber .42″
21. Colt’s rifle, caliber .42″, triangular bayonet
22. Colt’s rifle, caliber .50″, triangular bayonet
23. Thieme (Baxter’s) rifle, caliber .50″, triangular bayonet
24. Triplett & Scott rifle, caliber —
25. Sharp’s musket, caliber .50″, U.S. bayonet
26. Ward-Burton rifle, caliber .42″, triangular bayonet
27. Ward-Burton rifle, caliber .45″, sword bayonet
28. Ward-Burton rifle, caliber .50″
29. Hubbell rifle, caliber .50″
30. Martini rifle (long block), caliber .45″
31. Martini rifle (short block), caliber .45″
32. Morgenstern rifle, caliber .42″
33. Morgenstern rifle, caliber .50″
34. Conroy rifle, caliber .42″

There are several instances of variants not related to caliber, but differentiated in this list by country or a specific configuration. The Remington rifles in .50″ caliber provide an example. The first rifle in the list above is the Remington, caliber .50, No. 286. We also see:

• Remington rifle, caliber .50, No. 4;
• Remington (Ryder), caliber .50;
• Remington (modified), caliber .50.

Now you’ll obviously see some of the same rifles differentiated only by caliber. Again, looking at the Remington submissions alone, we see rifles in .42″, .43″, and .51″. The government’s standard cartridge at this time was the 50-70. That’s a nominal .50″ caliber (diameter) bullet, loaded with 70 grains of black powder. According to the report from Schofield, the Board tested all variants listed here, regardless of caliber, using ammunition “supplied by the inventor”.

Regrettably, I’m not aware of a complete record of each of these tests. The Board selected it’s top eight rifles and included the results of those tests in their report, grouped into six nominal “systems”. But to my knowledge we don’t have insight into the performance of the other samples from this first review board. I would love to hear about it if you know otherwise.

The list of test results looks like this:

• Remington Rifles
  • Remington rifle, modified so as to load at the half-cock, caliber .50″ (sent by Colonel Schofield).
  • Remington rifle (Springfield barrel), No. 4, caliber .50″, sent from Remington & Sons.
• Springfield Breech-Loading Rifle Musket
  • Springfield breech-loading rifle musket, caliber .50″, No. 14515, sent from Springfield Armory.
• Sharp’s [sic] Rifle Musket
  • Sharp’s [sic] rifle musket, caliber .50″, sent by Sharp’s [sic] Rifle Manufacturing Company.
• Morgenstern Rifle
  • Morgenstern rifle, caliber .42″, sent by Herman Boker & Co.
• Martini-Henry Rifle
  • The Martini rifle, caliber .45″ (short breech-block), sent by F. Martini, Switzerland.
  • The Martini rifle, caliber .45″ (long block) sent by F. Martini, Switzerland.
• Ward-Burton Rifle
  • The Ward-Burton rifle, caliber .50″, sent by N.G. Ward, New York.

In our test results, we see two Remington entries, listed as follows:

• Remington rifle, modified so as to load at the half-cock, caliber .50″ (sent by Colonel Schofield)
• Remington rifle (Springfield barrel), No. 4, caliber .50″, sent from Remington & Sons

I mentioned the six nominal systems. From Ordnance Memoranda 11, the Board “selected the following six systems for infantry muskets, in the order of relative merit:”

1. The Remington
2. The Springfield
3. The Sharp [sic]
4. The Morgenstern
5. The Martini-Henry
6. The Ward-Burton

Note that this is a prioritized list. Remington won. Again from Memoranda 11:

“Only the first three systems named possess such superior excellence as warrant their adoption by the government . . . without further trial in the hands of troops. Of these three . . . the Board are unanimously and decidedly of the opinion that the Remington is the best system for the Army of the United States.”

This priority also corresponds exactly to the order in which our subset of test results are provided. Of the Remington ‘system’ rifles, the test results itemize only two out of the original eight Remington submissions from the original list. These two are the variant submitted by Schofield himself, a modified version to load at the half-cock, and the rifle No. 4. I would assume that these are also prioritized – that the modified Remington was preferred to rifle No. 4. The report doesn’t say this, but it’s conspicuous. If the first list level is prioritized, which we know it is since it corresponds exactly to the prioritized recommendation list, why not prioritize the second list level as well?

An added bit of data I’m working into this supposition is the upcoming field trials of the Remington action. When this eventually went into field trials, the rifle was provided using the factory Remington action, not the one modified to load at half-cock. One of the most consistent pieces of feedback from the troops regarding the Remington action was that it should be modified to load at half-cock.

This doesn’t make a lot of sense until you see how this rifle works in its unmodified configuration. Larry Potterfield has an awesome YouTube video of this here – he bead blasts a rolling block receiver, then mills away the sidewall to show us the internal mechanics of the action. As demonstrated when loading the Remington rolling block, you need to pull the hammer back to its fully cocked position, then load a round and close the block. The advantage of this system is that it’s quick – you’re ready to fire as soon as you load the round and close the chamber behind it. And we can see this in the test results. One of the tests the Board performed on the rifle was for its rapidity of fire – 25 rounds fired off-hand.

That Martini is another story – pliers were involved to extract stuck shells. But you can see how the unmodified Remington totally dominates the field here. Who’s second? Ward-Burton, the bolt action that cocks automatically upon closing the bolt, also worthy of its own article.

The disadvantage to loading a rifle in essentially condition 0 is that it’s not very safe. In fact, it’s dangerous. Now, I know, you say you could handle it, you’d be responsible. But we’re not talking about you, we’re talking about issuing this to thousands of enlisted infantry soldiers. Often these are knuckleheads. Here’s a modern example of the same calculus — NYPD has been issuing its officers handguns with 12-pound trigger pulls for more than 100 years, and only in August of 2021 has considered dropping this down to 5.5 pounds. Every one of us would consider a 12 pound trigger a sign of a defective handgun. But this was also an example of higher-ups prioritizing the safety of knuckleheads, imagined or real, at the cost of accuracy and efficiency.

This question of the audience – the operators of the weapon and the environment they’ll be fighting in – is an important and recurring consideration that’s necessary when reviewing the reports from the first review board, the officers in the field, and the second review board. It’s too easy to imagine what we’d want to be using in the field in those days, imaging ourselves with years of firearms experience, responsible, patient, and cool under fire.

The report from Schofield was dated June 10, 1870. A month later, Bvt. General Dyer, the Chief of Ordnance, would criticize the report and order field trials. The important bits are in bold, but I think it’s worth quoting in larger context to appreciate the gentle way in which the recommendation is essentially pooped upon. Again, from Ordnance Memoranda 11:

Respectfully returned to the Adjutant General.

The opinion expressed by the Board in regard to the relative merits of the several breech-loading systems for small arms is not wholly concurred in by this Bureau; and is not, it is thought, sustained by the record of the proceedings which accompanies this report, which shows that serious defects existed in the Remington arms not observable in the Springfield or the Sharp’s [sic], such as frequent failures to explode the cartridges, occasional sticking of the empty shell in the chamber, and the difficulty of moving the hammer and breech-block after firing with heavy charges. The first two of these defects, and also the objection arising from the arm being loaded only at a full-cock, have been brought to the notice of this Bureau by the commanding officers of all companies using this arm. These defects show that the Remington arm should not be adopted before being thoroughly tested in service.

I agree with the Board that the “Remington,” the “Springfield,” and the “Sharp’s” [sic] systems are decidedly superior to all other systems which have been brought to their notice, and I recommend that one thousand muskets and three hundred carbines be prepared according to each of the three systems and issued for comparative trial in service —companies of infantry and artillery to have an equal number of muskets of each system, and companies of cavalry an equal number of carbines of each system— monthly reports on the comparative merits of which to be made regularly to this Bureau, by company commanders, during a period of not less than twelve months after their first introduction into service, upon forms to be furnished by this Bureau ; which reports, at the end of that time, to be laid before a board of officers to be appointed to select a breech-loading arm for adoption by the War Department for the military service.

So here we go – the War Department orders the Remington, Springfield, and Sharps rifles and carbines sent out West, with the concurrence of General of the Army and the Secretary of War.