The Warner carbine was another of the weapons used in small numbers by the Union cavalry during the Civil War. It is a pivoting breechblock action built on a brass frame. These carbines were made in two batches, known as the Greene and Springfield. The first guns were chambered for a proprietary...

1852 Slant-Breech Sharps

The largest sporting rifles ever actually used in the field as more than an exhibition were 4-bore stopping rifles, firing roughly 1" in diameter (25mm) projectiles. These were intended to not simply kill a dangerous animal, but to stop it immediately in a charge, which might require shooting thr...

James Merrill was a Baltimore inventor and businessman who patented an improvement to the Jenks pattern carbine in 1858. His idea was for an improved locking lever for the gun, which would also allow the use on paper or linen cartridges instead of loose ball and powder. He demonstrated the improv...

This experimental repeating conversion of a Trapdoor Springfield was most likely made by Augustine Sheridan Jones, of the Dakota Territory in the 1880s. We know he submitted a different type of magazine-fed Trapdoor to the US military’s 1882 repeating rifle trials, and this rifle also came out of...

The Mousqueton Modele 1854, named for General Antoine Hector Thésée Treuille de Beaulieu, was the first breechloader adopted by the French military. It was issued to the Cent Gardes (personal bodyguard) of Emperor Napoleon III and used a 9x46mm copper-cased pinfire cartridge. The action is a uniq...

The Remington Rolling Block was a very popular rifle in the 1860s and 1870s, and probably would have been a better choice than the Trapdoor Springfield for the US military. But among the nations that did adopt is were the Papal States. While Vatican City is a tiny sovereign enclave today in Rome,...

The Armstrong & Taylor carbine is a neat single shot breechloading carbine patented in 1862. It operates by way of a button on the top of the rear tang, which allows the barrel assembly to rotate open around a pin located below the barrel. An extractor is mechanically camel to the pin, and pushes...

I had a chance to visit Hire Arms in Johannesburg - a movie arms supply company. Among many other things in their collection, they had an assortment of extremely crude handmade firearms confiscated from poachers in Zimbabwe. As something we don't see much of here in the US, I thought they were pr...

What we today call the Collette Gravity Gun was actually designed by a gunsmith named Jean Nicolas Herman in Liege between 1850 and 1854. He was an employee of Victor Collette (note: spellings vary), and licensed his patent for Collette to produce. The system was first shown at the 1855 Paris Int...

The Westley Richards "Monkey Tail" was a popular capping breechloader first designed in 1858. It was finally adopted by the British cavalry in 1866, and served until 1881. It was also a popular commercial rifle, especially in remote places like Australia and South Africa. It was named for the lon...

Most people think about the Remington Rolling Block as a purpose-built rifle, but it was also used as a way to transform muzzleloaders into more modern breechloaders. Remington did this commercially, and small gunsmiths did it as well. Essentially any old rifle could contribute a barrel, stock, a...

Hans Larsen was a very successful competitive marksman (World Champion, in fact) and gunsmith in Norway in the late 1800s. He, and later his company, made a wide variety of guns, from revolving rifles and muzzleloaders to cartridge breechloaders and repeating rifles.

Larsen's target and sporti...

George Fosbery was the British officer (Major, at the time of this particular design) responsible for the quite famous Webley-Fosbery self-cocking revolver, as well as the Paradox system for shotgun slugs and many other lesser known firearms inventions. This rifle was his entry into British trial...

This rifle design was developed by the Gevelot cartridge company to compete with the Modele 1866 Chassepot for French military use, although it was not successful in that attempt. The weapon has an uncommon sliding chamber mechanism in which the cartridge does not move forward into the chamber, b...

Designed by Christian Sharps (or Sharps rifle fame), the Sharps & Hankins carbine was a light and handy rimfire carbine intended for military use. It was a single-shot weapon with an unusual action to lever the barrel forward off the frame, and several interesting technical feature. Most signific...

The first new breech-loading cartridge rifle adopted by the Austro-Hungarian military was the Model 1867 Werndl, firing the 11x42R black powder cartridge. It used an interesting rotating breech locking system, and replaced the Lorenz muzzleloading muskets and the Wanzl breechloading conversions o...

In the late 1880 or early 1890s, a British engineer and adventurer settled himself in Kabul, Afghanistan and at the request of Emir Abdul Rahman organized and build a rifle factory for the Afghan government. This factory would operate for nearly 30 years, producing a series of different types of ...

In 1903, the British government shipped a load of spare/surplus Martini parts and tooling to Egypt, where it was set up in the Armory at the Citadel in Cairo. While Egypt was technically a part of the Ottoman Empire at this time, British troops had entered the country in 1882 to protect the Briti...

George Morse of Baton Rouge patented a design for a remarkably modern centerfire cartridge and breechloading rifle action in 1856 and 1858, using a standard percussion cap as a primer. This was coupled with a gutta percha washer for sealing and a rolled brass cartridge body that was strong and ro...

NOTE: Please see this video for a correction regarding Whitworth accuracy:
Sir Joseph Whitworth is quite the famous name in engineering circles, credited with the development of such things as Whitworth threading (the first standardized thread pattern) and engineer’s blue. When he decided to ...

This 1874 Sharps rifle is a great example of a been-there, done-that authentic western buffalo rifle. It was shipped from Sharps in 1879 with double set triggers, open sights, and a medium-weight .45 caliber barrel, but rebuilt by a Cheyenne gunsmith with a much heavier barrel in .40-100 caliber,...

William Soper of Reading, England designed this "Direct Action Breech Loader" and attempted to have it tested for British military adoption - but he was one day too late to have his rifle included in the tests and the Martini-Henry was ultimately adopted. The intent of Soper's system was to have ...

The Jenks carbine was a remarkably svelte and elegant breechloading system patented by South Carolinian William Jenks in 1838. It was tested by the US Navy in 1841, and found to be quite successful. The Navy would proceed to adopt it, and order 1,000 rifles and 5,250 carbines from N.P. Ames in th...