Rich Pierce said:
I don’t see much support for “surplus military guns” being used by civilians.
There are many hundreds of examples of actual guns that went west during this period. It’s not a big unknown that requires us to guess.
I agree with Rich's comments above. The government never had surplus arms in any significant number until after the Mexican-American War and the largest surplus, of course, following the Civil War.
George Moller's series of books on
American Military Shoulder Arms are an excellent source of information on US military small arms.
In the 1790's after the defeat of General St. Claire and his army in Ohio by Indians, the government created a new army and had to procure new arms for it. The government ordered 3000 musket locks and 3000 rifle locks from the Ketlands in England to use on many of these new arms. These arms were kept in government arsenals until they were needed. They were typically returned to the arsenals after campaigns to be repaired and kept in stores.
The next big surge in the size of the army was the War of 1812. The US Government did not have a standing army of any meaningful size until that time. All the arms in the arsenals were issued and new arms ordered.
In Volume III of the series mentioned above, Moller states, "At the time of the adoption of the Model 1842 percussion musket in the early spring of 1842, there were slightly fewer than 1 million flintlock muskets in federal repositories, in the hands of the armed forces, and in the possession of the individual states."
Between the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War, very few military arms entered the civilian market.
In 1842, the Secretary of War directed an inspection and classification of the military arms made prior to 1832. There were four classifications. The first two identified flintlock muskets suitable for conversion to percussion. The third identified arms made between 1812 and 1820 not suitable for conversion but still may be used in cases of emergency. The fourth classification identified all arms made prior to 1812, all unserviceable arms made during later periods and all damaged arms not worthy of repair. They were to be declared surplus and available for sale and amounted to 108,821 arms.
The first of these arms to be sold as surplus were 65,173 flintlock muskets sold at prices ranging from $0.21 to $3.00 each by 1848.
The small number of documented instances of military arms being sold to civilians prior to the 1840's reinforces Rich's point. They are isolated instances such as Lewis and Clark disposing of arms carried by the Corp by auction after returning to St. Louis. This action suggests that they were so worn and/or damaged that it wasn't worth the expense to transport them back east to the arsenals they came from.
To the other point of Rich's that I included in the quote above, I highly recommend two books published by Track of the Wolf for those on a tight budget. Those are
For Trade and Treaty and
Rifles of the American Indians by Ryan Gale et. al.
If you can afford them, two other excellent books are
Firearms of the Fur Trade by James A. Hanson and
Great Gunmakers for the Early West by James D. Gordon.
