Who built the rifling machinery and progressive groove depth head for Spencer's?

[El Supremo]

Hello:

Over many years, "Arizona Trooper", "Blair" and today, Joel Foss of Weston ME have pointed me in the same directions, R & L and L, G & Y. Thanks. Past "searches" showed little specifics, beyond the Labounty book noted below.  Today, AI Googling "Who produced the rifling machinery for Sharps and Spencer rifles?" surfaced an article: Men, Machine, & the Carbine, with topics "Manufacturing Advancements" and "Rifling Machine". Included are pages of published historical references.
 
Short version:  During the 1850's there was a widespread exchange of skilled workers moving between Federal arsenals and civilian machinery producers/gun makers.  They carried and applied each other's advancements, including to Enfield, for decreasing depth groove rifling. The prominent machinery maker was first, Robbins and Lawrence, then its successor, Lamson, Goodnow and Yale ("L,G & Y"). In 1855, Springfield's Master Machinist, Cyrus Buckland, perfected an expanding head that cut three lands and grooves simultaneously with equal or decreasing depth.  In 1856, Hagner at Frankfort, Phila, perfected a broach tool that cut all lands and grooves in one pass.  These companies and machinists seem to be the most significant prior to and during the Civil War.

My take:  Sharps and others, but not Spencer, are mentioned in the article as using R&L machinery. 
Spencer first used Sharps' barrels, so my guess is both had R & L machinery and transitioned to L, G & Y's with the "decreasing groove depth" head.  The article indicates the Windsor VT or the Hagley Museum, Wilmington DE, machinery museum may have some of the machinery. While perhaps trivia, this info is not in other Spencer references I have reviewed.

There IS an authoritative source with CW era history and modern info:  "Rifling Machines and Methods" Clifford F. Labounty.  IBSN 978-0-615-7322-7.  It was $49.50 when I bought several copies from Cliff about eight years ago.  Pages 41 and 44 include details about creating progressive depth grooves on a Pratt & Whitney Sine Bar machine.  I spoke with Cliff many times in 2017, 2018 and 2019, when he was in his '80's.  He was exceptionally candid, sharing and patient.  As of April 2025, he may still be alive, but I do not know who controls the book's rights or if any copies are available, beyond mine.  I gave several copies to barrel makers, including Larry Romano.  Cliff gave me a factory new, most detailed, P&W Manual for its 1/2B50 rifling machine, which I passed to Larry. 

Today, custom rifle barrel makers Bobby Hoyt and perhaps still Dan Whitacre, have home/custom built machinery that can impart progressive depth rifling grooves.   Cliff humorously referred to selling rifling machines as "CUSTOM for the seller and Home Built for the buyer".  Beauty in the eyes .... .

Smiles.
El Supremo/Kevin Tinny

[Arizona Trooper]

Interesting. Robbins & Lawrence went bust in 1856 when the Brits stiffed them on the Enfield P-53 contract. However, their extremely talented "mechanics", which we would call engineers today, went on to design machinery for several other companies after R&L's demise. The R&L Enfield machinery knocked around New England for a while after the company's failure, with some ending up at Colt and LG&Y, possibly also at Whitney.

With the emergency of 1861, I suspect that Spencer would have had to buy mostly new machinery for their operation. They were smart to use as many Sharps parts as possible, since machinery had already been designed to make them.

It's curious that the AI search doesn't mention Ames Mfg. They were a major machine manufacturer, broker and operator of Massachusetts Arms (makers of Smith and Maynard carbines). They had been the source of both RSAF Enfield's and Virginia Manufactory's machinery.

By the way, last time I was at Harpers Ferry there was a Civil War era Pratt & Whitney rifling machine on display in one of the armorer's houses.

[tjiann]

Interesting video of P&W ma

chine.

[El Supremo]

Great one, Tim:
Thanks for adding it here.
Smiles.
El Supremo/Kevin Tinny

[Arizona Trooper]

That's cool!

[John Jamieson]

Isn't there a video of a rifling machine that was used in the St. Louis Hawkin shop?

[El Supremo]

Yes, I have seen a video, but cannot Post it.
Searching antique rifling machines surfaces many video's, but nothing revealing about the mechanism for decreasing depth grooves. Smiles.
El Supremo/Kevin Tinny

[matt45]

Last year I was at the Cody Firearms Museum and the guide was explaining how a big part of the buffalo semi extinction was driven by the need for leather for the belts for the different machines being used at the time.

[Arizona Trooper]

Yes, before electric motors pretty much all serious machinery was run by overhead line shafts and leather belts. When I was a kid (late 1950s and early 60s) my grandfather and uncle ran a water powered mill in rural Maryland. One floor was a meet freezer for all the local farmers. Another was a grain/flour mill and the bottom floor was a machine shop. The freezer, mill and shop were all run by the waterwheel through overhead shafting and leather belts. My brother and I loved to go there!

[John Jamieson]

I have slowly been reading "Sons of a Trackless Forest", about the long hunters going into the Cumberland gap. It seams that they were more into supplying deer hides and tallow. Hides from buffalo and elk were not as desirable.

[Hair Trigger Jim]

I have slowly been reading "Sons of a Trackless Forest", about the long hunters going into the Cumberland gap. It seams that they were more into supplying deer hides and tallow. Hides from buffalo and elk were not as desirable.

That would probably have been about a hundred years or so earlier (when the Cumberland Gap on the east coast was a "trackless forest"), and the demands of society were different.

[Arizona Trooper]

Tanners figured out how to tan buffalo hides in industrial quantities in the 1870s. Before that, the leather was low quality and hard to work with, so there was not much demand. The process was different than the cowhides they were use to.