Spencer's West

After the Civil War, savvy frontiersmen chose the Spencer repeating carbine.

- PHIL SPANGENBERGER

At the conclusion of the Civil War, the Spencer Repeating Rifle Company had sold more than 100,000 military arms to U.S. forces. Although the company enjoyed great success during the war, such massive production of guns worked against it in the postwar years. Many thousands of Spencer military surplus rifles and carbines were being sold for far less than the company's sporting rifles. Spencer had literally produced himself out of the postwar market, and by 1868 the company had failed. Interestingly, the bankrupt Spencer Company was purchased by the Fogarty Repeating Rifle Company and in less than a year that firm sold Spencer's remaining assets to Oliver Winchester in 1869.

Ironically though, Christopher Spencer's metallic cartridge guns were quite popular and there was a great demand for inexpensive arms by those heading West, and his seven-shot repeaters were held in high esteem by many frontiersmen. Along with the government's sale of surplus Spencer carbines and rifles, Western gunsmiths were creating modestly priced "sporterized" Spencer rifles by using surplus carbine actions and adding heavy octagon barrels, forearms and occasionally double-set triggers and wiping rods, giving them the look of the old-time muzzleloading plains rifles, such as Hawken, Dimick, Gemmer or others of that ilk.