Serbian Peabody rifle

American inventor Henry Oliver Peabody (1826-1903) from Boston, Massachusetts patented a new form of breechloading rifle action in 1862, and his new Peabody rifles were sold in small numbers in USA and Europe. Available records show that the third patent (No. 72,076, issued on December 10, 1867) obtained by Peabody was on an action system specifically designed and constructed for use in converting military muzzleloading muskets into breech-loading arms. By the end of the American Civil War the self-contained metallic cartridge was a sure thing; conversions of muzzle-loading rifles had already commenced and it seemed to be a profitable venture to get into. Peabody developed such an action based on his original idea of the rear-pivoted breechblock, for use with Springfield and Enfield muzzle-loading muskets.[4]

Serbian Peabody model 1870 military rifle. The breachblock with tail-piece is clearly visible.

The Peabody alteration is simply a shallow version of his original action, but made without the finger lever, and with the breechblock made with a tail-piece. The receiver is largely composed of two long narrow walls connected at the ends with thicker blocks of metal. The front end is bored and threaded to accept the barrel, while the back forms a tang to fill up the recess in the musket stock left after removal of the breech plug. The breechblock tail-piece extends to the rear, forming the operating lever. The breechblock is held in the receiver by a heavy screw going through both at the rear, allowing it to pivot. This breechblock screw is accessible over the stock edge so it can be easily removed, allowing the breechblock to be removed for cleaning. The top tang part of the receiver is grooved to make room for the tail-piece so that only the very end is above the grip line of the stock. The patent drawing shows the end of the tail-piece bent up, so that it could be tipped up with the thumb. The firing pin lies in a groove cut into the right side of the breechblock. A firing pin for a rim fire cartridge would be straight with a rounded-tip end, while the centerfire pin would be with a forked tip. The breechblock was made with a novel safety feature in the form of a raised metal shoulder just behind the rear end of the firing pin, so the breechblock can only be opened when the hammer is either in the halfcock or full-cock position, and the rifle cannot be fired unless the breechblock is fully closed. A stiff spring, fastened under the front end of the breechblock, extends to the rear where it contacts a notched bar in the rear bottom of the receiver. This spring supplies tension to the breechblock to hold it either in the closed or open position, as well as supplying some snap to the opening of the action to aid in case extraction and ejection.[4]

The steps required to convert the muzzle-loading musket to a breechloader with this action consists of removing the original barrel from the stock, cutting off a section of the breech end equaling the length of the conversion action, threading the barrel and fitting it to the action, routing out the stock as required to accept the action, refitting the barrel and action in the stock and installing a new hammer on the lock. There were a great many different “conversion” actions developed between 1860 and 1870 (such as Snider-Enfield, Wanzl, Springfield Model 1873) and the Peabody action was about as good as any of them.[4]

Although the U.S. Government never purchased any of them, this Peabody conversion was adopted by the Principality of Serbia in 1870, and some 50,000 muzzle loading rifles and Green percussion rifles were converted in 1870–1878. Serbian Peabody Model 1870 rifle was the main Serbian military weapon used in Serbian–Ottoman Wars (1876–1878).[5][6][7]