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aj
Recruit
United Kingdom
Status: offline |
 Posted - September 10 2005 : 2:17:16 PM
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The spencer carbine is a repeating carbine which fired seven shots, the rounds were fed into the breech by a tubular magazine, which fitted into the butt of the carbine.
A few units were giventhe 'Blakeslee cartridge box'which held ten ready loaded tubes, so the trooper could fire seventy rounds rapidly. However most units were not equipped with this expensive cartridge box. Most of the units had to put their cartridges in pouches.
What i wish to know is how would a trooper without the Blakeslee cartridge box reload his weapon? He would have to put seven rounds invidually into the magazine and then put the magazine into the the butt of the carbine.
Could someone tell me if there was another method??
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dave
Captain
Australia
Status: offline |
Posted - September 12 2005 : 09:19:54 AM
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The standard procedure for reloading the Spencer was to drop the bullets one by one into the magazine cavity. The magazine was then inserted after the last bullet, the spring compressing as it was pushed down over the bullets.
The Blakeslee cartridge box wasn't a magazine as we use today. It was just a tube, capped at one end. To reload, the cap was removed and the bullets were simply poured into the magazine well.
Late model Spencer's were fitted with a Stabler cut-off which blocked the magazine feed and permitted single loading through the breech. |
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Loading the Spencer Carbine
