Included in this lot is a U.S. Springfield 1961 variant percussion rifle. This U.S. Springfield variant utizlies a 35 ½” barrel chambered for the .58 Minié ball. The Minié ball is a type of muzzle-loading spin-stabilized bullet for rifled muskets named after its developer, Claude-Étienne Minié. Prior to the Minié ball, balls had to be jammed down the rifle barrel, sometimes with a mallet, and after a relatively small number of shots, gunpowder residue built up in the spiral grooves, which then had to be cleaned out. The development of the Minié ball was significant, because it was the first projectile that was small enough to be easily put down the barrel of a rifled long gun. Both the American Springfield Model 1861 and the British Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled muskets, the most common weapons used during the American Civil War, used the Minié ball. The Springfield rifle includes any of the several rifles that were standard infantry weapons of the U.S. Army most of the time from 1873 to 1936, all taking their name from the Springfield Armory, established at Springfield, Mass., by the U.S. Congress in 1794. The armory had produced smoothbore muskets from its earliest days, and between 1858 and 1865 it turned out more than 840,000 .58-calibre rifled muskets. This rifle shows good condition for its age. The right lock plate shows the standard U.S. Springfield and eagle stamping as well as a nice aged blued finish. The crescent metal butt plate on this firearm show the U.S. stamping on the top of the plate near the screw head. The left of the stock shows a cartouche with the date 1884. Toward the bottom of the tang on the stock is an additional cartouche. The barrel has been either replaced or reblue’d during the rifles life time. No Serial Number. This firearm qualifies as an Antique, and does not require FFL Transfer or NICS Background Check.