I'm doing the sculpt pictured below. It is suppose to be of a Illinois Volunteer rifle man during the Black Hawk war circa 1832.
I need information and good images on the weapons that would have been issued to a volunteer. I figure they wouldn't have issued them the brand new weapons and he probably would have carried a converted 1816 Springfield and and older saber. I know only that the rifle was 59 inches in total length with a 42 inch barrel. I know nothing about what the ammo pouch would have looked like and nothing about the saber at all. If you have plans and good images you could share with me I'd be very grateful if you could share them with me.

I was finally able to locate some pretty good images of a 1825 Springfield musket converted to percusion, they should be enough to make a convincing model. I still need info on the other stuff.

Bummer, I just read that the U.S. Army did not convert it weapons from flintlock to percusion till 1848 although most everyone had converted their flintlocks to percussion by 1830!!! Guess he'll be carrying the flintlock version unless someone has evidence that Illinois volunteers carried converted rifles.

No expert by any means but does this help http://www.64thill.org/rifles.htm? like the look of this fellah mate
Steve

Helm, it was an interesting read, but nothing there about the black hawk wars of 1832.

Ok mate sorry only Black Hawk I know is the helicopter

Steve

Ha ha,,, the copper got its name from the Indian Chief I'm guessing. Probably because he evaded the American military forces when he lead his Sauk Indian tribe back to the land that was once theirs in what is now Rock Island Illinois. The evasion only lasted a short period of time after they found themselves in the battle of Stillman run where with 40 warriors he routed the American Militiamen. 12 militiamen died to 3 warriors. Black Hawk originally just wanted to parley with the militia and reach a diplomatic solution. He send 3 envoys with a white flag who were seized and the next 3 were killed. That is when Black Hawk attacked them. The Americans were so humiliated they would not consider diplomacy from then on.

I worked well into the night yesterday improving the likeness and the pose. I spent the most time roughing out the rifle. I settled on the flintlock 1825 Springfield because that is what I had the most and best images of so I could get very close measurements. I managed to finish roughing in the stock the barrel and the breech. Today I will work on smoothing it out a little and on the trigger assembly and possibly the hammer. I still have no images of the ammo pouch or the saber. I saw one image of a Michigan Militiaman with the pouch attached to his belt and a disk for powder hanging from it. I don't know for certain the Illinois volunteers had the same.

Having read up a little on this I would imagine these militia like most others would have been pretty much "come as you are" equipped with just about anything lying about that was spare from the regulars and/or the regimental stores unless you can find an authoritative account/source go with what looks right Rich

Steve

Thanks Helm, I also found that out but was stumped because I found some documentation showing that they had received provisions and were outfitted. The list of items included food, pans and cup and when it came to firearms it only said 'those that had rifles used their own and those that did not were issued rifles by the quartermaster' No other description. I would like to find at least one or two good images of a sword or a saber the army used during those times and an ammo pouch as this particular individual came to the party unarmed.

I don't know about the rifle, but that Illinois militiaman sure looks familiar. Nice likeness.

Thanks clrsgt.
Here is my progress so far. I got the musket stock close to its final shape, made some of the hardware and the ram and I lengthen the jacket.

Hi Rich,
Not my area but I don't know if this will roughly help for the scale. As for the sword due to the nature of the war and terrain etc I would presume the would only carry a short sword like an artillery sword, accompanied with other weapons such axe/hatchet, knife, pistol.
cheers
Richie

Great image Richie and it will be a big help with the hardware since the images I have are at an angle and not really that high of a resolution. Thanks for the tip about the sword too, that gives me a place to at least start.

Making good progress on the rifle, but sort of burnt out on it and decided to work some more on the figure and what I think the ammo pouch might have looked like.

I posted the image on my face book page when someone showed me an image of a powder horn, pouch and knife sheath accessory that would look great on him, but seems to be from an earlier time. Anyone know if they were using paper ammo in 1832? If so that accessory would look out of place.

It looks so cool, I'm tempted to use it anyway and say what the hell.

One other thing I got out of this project. I have, what I thought was a modified 1863 Springfield Musket. The reason I say modified is the stock is much shorter than it should be and the hole for the ramrod is a much wider diameter. There are other annoying features as well. During my research I found the stock that matches my gun, but it belongs to a 1820 Springfield Musket which uses a wooden ramrod which looks like about the same diameter as the hole in mine (ramrod missing). I think someone decided to convert their older weapon to percussion but swapping out the hammer plate and trigger. That would explain why the markings on my barrel don't really match the markings of other muskets of the same make of that time period.

Great looking figure; will it be a one off or commercial? The horn and pouch look about right for the period. You might want to expand your search to the alamo and texas war of independence (1835-36). Remember technology didn't change as fast as it does now.

Thanks Captn, yes, but it will be 1/8 the scale and I might do it in 1:32 or 1:29 scale which I believe is what the figures scales are in 35mm.

1:29th would I believe be 60mm (could be wrong math isn't my strong suit) either count me in for one.

The scales sort of confuse me for 35mm I meant 1/35 scale which works out to 46mm. I bought some figures that size a while back just to see how to conform, and the weapons were dead on 1/35 scale, but the figure itself was huge. It turns out that while the weapons and accessories are calculated at 1/35 the figures are 1:29 scale because they calculated figure height by the distance from the ground to the center of the eyes. My 1/35 scale army guys look to be around 6' 4" compared to their weapons.