This is gonna be somewhat longish and somewhat technical. Skip it if you wish.

Teribus, here's the list of the minimum number of individual firearms used at the LBH. You can find this list as table 6-1 in Richard Allen Fox, Jr.'s book Archeology, History, and Custer's Last Battle (Norman, Oklahoma: U. of Oklahoma Press, 1993) p. 78. Fox and others went over the Custer site with metal detectors, finding shell casings and fired bullets to arrive at this list.

Forehand and Wadsworth .32 caliber, 1; Colt .36, 1; Sharps .40, 1. In .44 caliber: Smith and Wesson, 3; Evans, 1; Henry, 62; Winchester Model 1873, 7; Colt conversion, 1; Colt Model 1860, 1; Colt Model 1871, 1; Remington Model 1858, 1; Remington Model 1858 conversion, 1; Ballard, 1. In .45 caliber: Colt Model 1873 pistol, 12; Springfield Model 1873 carbine, 69; Sharps, 1; Unknown, 1. In .50 caliber: Maynard, 1; Sharps, 27; Springfield, 6; Unidentified, 1; Unknown .50 balls, 1. Others: Star .54 caliber, 1; Spencer .56/56, 2; Spencer .56/50, 3; Enfield.577, 1; Unknown .44 or .45 caliber balls, 2; Unknown shotgun, 1.

Thats a MINIMUM of 215 individual firearms. The arrows used were all metal tipped.

Here is what is said (p. 241) about the .45/55 carbine's failure to extract. The evidence is taken from cartridge cases picked up at the Custer site; the author also discusses the Reno site.

As to the former category of evidence [torn, pried or scratched cartridge cases], only 3 of the 88 (3.4 percent).45/55-caliber cartridge cases recovered from the Custer field exhibit pry or scratch marks; none displayed a ripped or severed cartridge-case rim. The cases with pry marks represent 3 of the 69 individual carbines (4.3 percent) discerned on the basis of firearm identification analysis. With a figure of 210 carbines in the Custer battalion, 4.3 percent would suggest that about 9 carbines used and the Custer battle could have experienced extraction problems.

As for the assertion that the Henry rifle wasn't accurate beyond about 50 yards, I submit the following; you can read the entire thing http://www.rarewinchesters.com/articles/art_hen_04.shtml.

In showing the type of sights that were used and given the fact that most soldiers were average or less marksmen, it is doubtful if they could hit a target beyond 200 to 300 yards. An accomplished marksmen would hit with any gun including the Henry. When we look at the type of ammunition used in the Henry, it is doubtful that even an expert marksmen could hit targets regularly at long ranges of over 500 yards with a Henry.

Let's examine the type of ammunition that was used in the Henry. The Henry cartridge is a rim-fire round that uses a casing .875 inches long. The total length of the round is 1.345 inches. A 200 or 216 grain bullet of .446 diameter was loaded atop 26 to 28 grains of black powder. This round had a muzzle velocity of 1125 feet per second and muzzle energy of 568 foot pounds of energy.(8) According to these ballistics, most shooting experts will readily agree that this cartridge is hardly adequate for deer size animals and certainly no match for buffalo or grizzly bears. The .44 Henry's 200 grain bullet is a flat nose bullet, later a pointed nose was used, with a ballistic coefficient number of about .153. The coefficient number is the bullet's ability to overcome resistance in flight relative to the performance of a standard projectile used to compute ballistic tables. A number of .153 represents a bullet of very poor long range capabilities. The .44 Henry must have had a giant rainbow trajectory making hitting a target past 200 yards almost impossible for the average shooters.

The average soldier during the Plains Wars had, if he was lucky, three weeks training -- primarily in close order drill, guard mount, and other such "soldiering" techniques -- before being sent to his unit, where he was expected to pick up the necessary further instruction. Riflery was NOT emphasized until the Army Reforms of the 1880s -- and then the soldiers took to it with such enthusiasism that by the Spanish-American War in 1898 the American soldier are a very good shot indeed. (See Forty Miles A Day On Beans And Hay for an excellent discussion of these topics, among others.)

Custer may have taken the best of the Regiment with him, but their training most probably left quite a bit to be desired when they were faced with Gall, Crazy Horse, and the rest.