Difference between revisions of "Sandbox"

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−	: ''This article is about the [[American]] WW2 [[insurgency weapon]].  For the shotgun, see [[Winchester Liberator]]; for the 3D printable pistol, see [[Defense Distributed Liberator]].
	{{gun		{{gun
−	|name= The Liberator	+	|name= Sharps rifle
−	|image= M1942 liberator.jpg	+	|image= Berdan Sharps rifle.jpg
−	|caption= The FP-45/M1942	+	|caption=
	|origin= [[United States]]		|origin= [[United States]]
−	|type= [[single shot]] [[pistol]]	+	|type= [[rifle]] / [[carbine]]
	<!-- Specifications -->		<!-- Specifications -->
−	|frame= stamped sheet metal	+	|frame=
−	|length= 5.55 in (141 mm)	+	|length= 47 inches (1,200 mm)
−	|barrel= 4 in (100 mm)	+	|barrel=
	|length_pull=		|length_pull=
	|no_of_barrels=		|no_of_barrels=
−	|weight= 1 lb (450 g)	+	|weight= 9.5 lb (4.3 kg)
	|width=		|width=
	|height=		|height=
−	|cartridge= [[.45 ACP]]	+	|cartridge= Originally a .52-caliber 475-grain projectile with 50-grain (3.2 g) cartridge; later converted to [[.45-70 Government]] in [[1873]].
	|caliber=		|caliber=
	|gauge=		|gauge=
−	|action=	+	|action= [[Falling Block]]
	|trigger_pull=		|trigger_pull=
−	|chambers= 1, conical	+	|chambers=
−	|twist= none	+	|twist=
−	|ROF= (maybe) 6 RPM	+	|ROF= 8–10 shots/minute
−	|muzzle_velocity= 820 ft/s (250 m/s)	+	|muzzle_velocity= 1,200 ft/s (370 m/s)
−	|range=	+	|range= 500 yd (460 m)
−	|max_range= 8 yd (7.3 m)	+	|max_range= 1,000 yd (910 m)
−	|feed= [[Single-shot]]	+	|feed=
−	|sights= [[iron sights]] so crude they may as well have not even been there.	+	|sights= open ladder
	|radius=		|radius=
	<!-- Service history -->		<!-- Service history -->
−	|service= 1942–1945	+	|service= 1850–1881
−	|used_by= Dropped into occupied territories for use by insurgents	+	|used_by= Union Army, Confederate Army
−	|wars= [[World War II]]	+	|wars= American Civil War
	<!-- Production history -->		<!-- Production history -->
−	|designer= George Hyde<ref name="AR">Bruce N. Canfield "Desperate Times: The Liberator Pistol" [[American Rifleman]] [[August 2012]] pp.48-51 & 83-84</ref>	+	|designer= [[Christian Sharps]]
−	|design_date= May 1942<ref name="AR"/>	+	|design_date= [[1848]]
−	|manufacturer= Guide Lamp Corporation of General Motors<ref name="AR"/>	+	|manufacturer= A. S. Nippes, Robbins & Lawrence Company, [[Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company]], many others
−	|unit_cost= $2.10 (1942)<ref name="AR"/>	+	|unit_cost=
−	|production_date= June – August 1942<ref name="AR"/>	+	|production_date=
−	|number= 1,000,000	+	|number= over 100,000
−	|variants=	+	|variants= also produced as a [[carbine]]
	|notes=		|notes=
−	}}The '''[[FP-45 Liberator]]''' was a [[pistol]] manufactured by the [[United States]] military during [[World War II]] for use by resistance forces in occupied territories.  The purpose of the gun was to arm resistance forces on a large scale to deter and lower the morale of armies of the axis powers. The ''Liberator'' was never issued to American or Allied troops and there is no documented instance of the weapon being used for their intended purpose. Many FP-45 pistols were never distributed and were destroyed by Allied forces after the war; and most of those distributed were lost or disposed of without ever seeing any combat use.<ref name="AR"/>	+	}}The '''Sharps rifles''' were a series of large bore [[single shot]] [[rifle]]s that began with a design by [[Christian Sharps]] in 1848. Sharps rifles have been historically renowned for long range and high accuracy.  By [[1874]] the rifle was available in a variety of calibers and had been adopted by the armies of a number of nations and was one of the few successful designs to transition from paper to metallic cartridge use.
−	==Project History==	+	Literally dozens of reproductions of the Sharps rifle are currently made by different rifle companies and have become an icon of the Old West by their use in a number of Western movies.
−	[[Image:Musee-de-lArmee-IMG 1038.jpg|thumb|left|FP-45 Liberator on display in Les Invalides]]	+
−	The concept was suggested by a [[Poland|Polish]] military attache in [[March 1942]]. The project was assigned to the US Army Joint Psychological Warfare Committee and was designed for the United States Army two months later by the Inland Manufacturing Division of the General Motors Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. Production was undertaken by General Motors Guide Lamp Division to avoid conflicting priorities with Inland Division production of the [[M1 carbine]].<ref name="AR"/> The army designated the weapon the ''Flare Projector Caliber .45'', hence the designation FP-45. This was done to disguise the fact that a pistol was being mass produced.  The original engineering drawings label the [[barrel]] as "tube", the trigger as "yoke", the [[firing pin]] as "control rod", and the trigger guard as "spanner".	+	==History==
		+	Sharps' initial rifle was patented [[September 17]], [[1848]]<ref>Patent number RE1720, [http://www.google.com/patents?id=cs4AAAAAEBAJ&dq=Christian+Sharps+September+12,+1848 "Improvement in Beech-loading Fire-arms"]. Issue date: [[July 5]], [[1864]].</ref> and manufactured by A. S. Nippes at Mill Creek, (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania.
−	The Guide Lamp Division plant in Anderson, Indiana assembled a million of these weapons. The ''Liberator'' project took about 6 months from conception to end of production with about 11 weeks of actual manufacturing time, done by 300 workers. Using that figure, 300 people produced a pistol with 23 parts every 6.6 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 11 weeks &mdash; making it probably the only pistol in the entire [[history of firearms|history of gunfire]] that could be ''manufactured'' faster than it could be ''loaded''. Loading this clunker takes about 10 seconds.	+	The second model used the [[Maynard tape primer]], and surviving examples are marked Edward Maynard - Patentee [[1845]]. In [[1850]] the second model was brought to the Robbins & Lawrence Company of Windsor, Vermont where the Model 1851 was developed for mass production. [[Rollin White]] of the R&L Co. invented the knife-edge breech block and self-cocking device for the "box-lock" Model 1851. This is referred to as the "First Contract", which was for 5,000 Model 1851 carbines - of which approximately 1,650 were produced by R&L in Windsor.
−	=== Concentration camps ===	+	In 1851 the "Second Contract" was made for 15,000 rifles and the [[Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company]] was organized as a holding company with $1,000 in capital and with John C. Palmer as president, Christian Sharps as engineer, and Richard S. Lawrence as master armorer and superintendent of manufacturing. Sharps was to be paid a royalty of $1 per firearm and the factory was built on R&L's property in Hartford, Connecticut.
−	Contrary to popular myth, the Liberator was ''never'' intended to be dropped on concentration camps with the bizarre notion that internees would pick up the weapons, overcome Nazi Guards, and liberate the camp.	+
−	Forgetting, for the moment, the flummoxingly ludicrous notion that a group of half-starved civilians with crude single shot weapons would somehow be able to overcome a trained military force complete with [[MP 40|SMGs]], [[MG 34|machine gun towers]], and all the other then-state-of-the-art German equipment, the horrors of the "final solution" were considered nothing more than wild rumors in the early years of the war &mdash; useful for propaganda purposes but not considered reliable intelligence.  Such barbarity was considered to be simply too inhuman to have actually been committed, even for the Germans.	+	The Model 1851 was replaced in production by the Model 1853. All Sharps rifles were manufactured in Windsor until [[October 1856]]. Christian Sharps left the company in [[1853]]; Richard S. Lawrence continued as the chief armorer until [[1872]] and developed the various Sharp models and their improvements that made the rifle famous.
−	It was not until advancing Allied forces began liberating the camps, beginning with the nearly intact capture of [[wikipedia:Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek (Konzentrationslager Lublin)]] in [[July 1944]], that Allied Command began to realize the true scale of the Nazi atrocities.<ref>C. Peter Chen [http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=136 "Discovery of Concentration Camps and the Holocaust: 24 Jul 1944 - 29 Apr 1945"] ''World War II Database''</ref>	+	The 1874-pattern Sharps was a particularly popular rifle that led to the introduction of several derivatives in quick succession.  It handled a large number of .40- to .50-caliber cartridges in a variety of loadings and barrel lengths.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=d6u2WwZIfQcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false The Guns that Won the West:  Firearms of the American Frontier: 1848-1898, John Walter, 2006], p. 129-133</ref><ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=6EMF4l14xbMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false Guns of the Old West, Dean Boorman, 2004], p. 44-47</ref>
−	[[File:Liberator-Left.jpg|thumb|]]	+	[[Hugo Borchardt]] designed the [[Sharps-Borchardt Model 1878]], the last rifle made by the Sharps Rifle Co. before its closing in [[1881]].
−	==Design==	+	Reproductions of the [[paper cartridge]] Sharps M1859 and M1863 Rifle and Carbine, the metallic cartridge 1874 Sharps Rifle, and Sharps-Borchardt Model 1878 are being manufactured today. They are used in Civil War re-enacting, hunting and [[Shooting sports|target shooting]].
−	The FP-45 was a crude, [[single-shot]] pistol designed to be cheaply and quickly mass produced. The Liberator had just 23 largely stamped and turned steel parts that were cheap and easy to manufacture.  It fired a [[.45 ACP|.45 caliber]] pistol [[cartridge]] from an [[rifling|unrifled]] barrel.  Due to the lack of rifling, it was intended for very close ambush, 1–4 yd (also known as "spitting distance"). Its maximum effective range was only about 25 ft (7.6 m).  At longer range, the bullet would begin to tumble wildly and stray off course.  The weapon's conical, rather than straight, [[chamber]] didn't help matters either, as it allowed lateral play of the loaded round (this feature could perhaps be considered an asset when loading the weapon in dirty field conditions, but it does nothing for accuracy).	+
−	Another issue is excessive [[headspace]], up to .020” free play between the cover slide and the [[breech]] end of the barrel.	+	==Sharps military rifles and carbines==
		+	[[File:Sharps 1852 Verschluss offen.JPG|thumb|left|Sharps Model 1852 "Slanting Breech" Carbine, open for loading, two primer-tapes]] The military '''Sharps rifle''' (also known as the '''Berdan Sharps rifle''') was a [[falling block rifle]] used during and after the American Civil War.<ref name="Hogg">Hogg, Ian V.(1987) ''Weapons of the Civil War''. New York: Military Press, ISBN 0-517-63606-9.</ref> Along with being able to use a standard [[percussion cap]], the Sharps had a fairly unusual pellet primer feed. This was a device which held a stack of pelleted [[Percussion cap|primers]] and flipped one over the [[nipple]] each time the trigger was pulled and the [[hammer]] fell - making it much easier to fire a Sharps from horseback than a gun employing individually loaded percussion caps.
−	Every FP-45 that left the factory for service was tested once and some were test fired 50 times to the point they were deemed unserviceable as a part of the quality control process<ref>Ralph Hagan, ''The Liberator Pistol, Development, Production, Distribution.'' 1996</ref>. Because of the low quality, it was nicknamed the "Woolworth gun."[[File:Liberator-Right.jpg|thumb|]]	+	The Sharps Rifle was produced by the [[Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company]] in Hartford, Connecticut. It was used in the Civil War by the U.S. Army Marksman, known popularly as "Berdan's Sharpshooters" in honor of their leader [[Hiram Berdan]]. The Sharps made a superior [[sniper]] weapon of greater accuracy than the more commonly issued [[muzzle-loading]] [[rifled musket]]s. This was due mainly to the higher rate of fire of the [[breech loading]] mechanism and superior quality of manufacture.
−	<gallery>	+
−	File:liberator diagram.gif|An extremely simple device.	+
−	File:Libinst.jpg|And so easy to use, too...	+
−	File:liberator bolt.jpg|How it opens. Clumsy, eh?	+
−	File:liberator prototype.jpg|The first prototype, handmade.	+
−	File:last liberator.jpg|The last Liberator made.	+
−	File:liberator bore.jpg|View down the barrel.	+
−	File:Liberator pistol.jpg|The innards.	+
−	</gallery>	+
−	=== Safety ===	+	At this time however, many officers were distrustful of breech-loading weapons on the grounds that they would encourage men to waste ammunition. In addition, the Sharps Rifle was expensive to manufacture (three times the cost of a muzzle-loading [[Springfield rifle]]) and so only 11,000 of the Model 1859s were produced. Most were unissued or given to sharpshooters, but the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves (which still carried the old-fashioned designation of a "rifle regiment") carried them until being mustered out in 1864.
−	{{quote|It is our position at Vintage Ordnance that it is flatly unadvisable to fire any original FP-45 Liberator Pistol because of some inherent weaknesses related to their design that could result in damage to the weapon and injury or death to the shooter or others in the vicinity. In addition, compared to modern arms of the same era, FP-45s appear to be more likely to accidentally discharge if jarred or dropped while cocked or carried with the cocking piece resting on a chambered round.  (A Vintage Ordnance replica made in 2009 would share this in common with a 67 year old original.)|Vintage Ordnance Co. LLC}}	+
−	==Wartime use==	+	===Sharps military carbine===
−	The ''Liberator'' was shipped in a cardboard box with 10 rounds of .45 ACP, a wooden dowel to poke out the empty cartridge case (think of a [[ramrod]] packing a [[musket]]), and a comic strip instruction sheet<ref name="ESAA">Bishop, Chris (2006). ''The Encyclopedia of Small Arms and Artillery''. Grange Books. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-84013-910-5.</ref> showing how to load and fire the weapon.  Extra rounds of ammunition could be stored in the pistol grip. The ''Liberator'' was a crude and clumsy weapon, never intended for front line service.  It was originally intended as an [[insurgency weapon]] to be mass dropped behind enemy lines to resistance fighters in occupied territory.  The notion was that a resistance fighter would to recover the weapon, sneak up on an Axis occupier, kill or incapacitate him, and snatch up his (much better) weapons.<ref>Riiiight...  great idea, guys.</ref>	+	[[File:Sharps 1863 Carbine .50-70 Calibre antique original.jpg|thumb|300px|Original 1863 carbine in [[.50-70 Government]].]]
		+	The carbine version was very popular with the cavalry of both the Union and Confederate armies and was issued in much larger numbers than the full length rifle. The falling block action lent itself to conversion to the new metallic cartridges developed in the late 1860s, and many of these converted carbines in [[.50-70 Government]] were used during the Indian Wars in the decades immediately following the Civil War.<ref name="Hogg"/>
−	The weapon was valued more for its psychological warfare effect as its actual field performance. It was thought that if an unholy buttload of these weapons could be delivered into Axis-occupied territory, it would have a devastating effect on the morale of occupying troops.  The plan was to drop the weapon in such great quantities that occupying forces could never capture or recover all of them.  It was hoped that the thought of thousands of these unrecovered weapons potentially in the hands of the citizens of occupied countries would have a deleterious effect on enemy morale.<ref>Wolfgang Michel: ''Die Liberator Pistole FP-45: Partisanenwaffe und Instrument der psychologischen Kriegsführung''. ISBN 978-3-8370-9271-4</ref>	+	Some Civil War-issue carbines had an unusual feature:  a coffee mill in the stock.<ref>[http://www.strategypage.com/cic/docs/cic222a.asp Strategy Page] accessed 13 June 2011</ref>
−	General Eisenhower's staff, however, were more realistic and never saw the practicality in mass dropping the ''Liberator'' over occupied Europe, and authorized distribution of fewer than 25,000 of the half million FP-45 pistols shipped to [[Great Britain]] for the [[French]] resistance. Generals Joseph Stillwell and Douglas MacArthur were no more enthusiastic about the other half of the pistols scheduled for shipment to the Pacific. The Army then turned 450,000 ''Liberators'' over to the Office of Strategic Services. Resistance fighters in both theatres were supplied with more effective weapons whenever possible, and French use of the FP-45 remains completely undocumented; although OSS did distribute a few to [[Greek]] resistance forces in [[1944]]. 100,000 FP-45 pistols were shipped to [[China]] in [[1943]], but the number actually distributed remains unknown. A few were distributed to [[Philippine]] troops under the Commonwealth Army and Constabulary and resistance fighters.<ref name="AR"/>	+	Unlike the Sharps rifle, the carbine was very popular and almost 90,000 were produced. By [[1863]], it was the most common weapon carried by Union cavalry regiments, although in [[1864]] many were replaced by 7-shot [[Spencer carbine]]s. Some Sharps clones were produced by the Confederates in Richmond. Quality was generally poorer and they normally used brass fittings instead of iron.
−	==Firearms collectors==	+	==Sharps sporting rifles==
−	The original delivered cost for the FP-45 was US$2.40/unit<ref name="ESAA" /> ($33.35 in 2012, adjusted for inflation). A ''Liberator'' in good condition today can fetch approximately $1200, with the original box bringing an additional $500.  Add in an original extremely rare paper instruction sheet and the value could rise above $4500 to a collector of rare World War II militaria. Fakes of these sheets exist, but authentic copies have a watermark that can be seen clearly, which has proven extremely difficult for counterfeiters to duplicate.	+	Sharps made sporting versions from the late 1840s until the late 1880s. After the American Civil War, converted Army surplus rifles were made into custom firearms, and the Sharps factory produced Models 1869 and 1874 in large numbers for commercial buffalo hunters and frontiersmen. These large-bore rifles were manufactured with some of the most powerful [[black powder]] cartridges ever made. Sharps also fabricated special long-range target versions for the then-popular Creedmore style of 1,000-yard (910 m) target shooting.  Many modern black powder cartridge silhouette shooters use original and replica Sharps rifles to target [[metallic silhouette]]s cut in the shapes of animals at ranges up to 500 meters. [[Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Company]], and [[C Sharps Arms]] of Big Timber, Montana, have been manufacturing reproductions of the Sharps Rifle since [[1983]] and [[1979]], respectively.
−	==The Concept Revived==	+	==In film==
−	The Liberator was replaced with the [[Deer gun]] in [[1964]] when a "modernized" (if you can call it that with a straight face) equivalent was designed for possible use in [[Vietnam]].<ref name="ESAA"/> This was because the CIA needed a weapon of this type and most of the Liberators, considered by the military to be the next best thing to useless, had been scrapped after World War II.	+	Some movies which showed the strengths of the Sharps rifle are ''Billy Two Hats'' (1974), Rancho Deluxe (1975), ''Valdez Is Coming'' (1971),  ''Quigley Down Under'' (1990), ''True Grit'' (the 2010 version).  In the 1990 western ''Quigley Down Under'' [[Tom Selleck]]'s title character's Sharps rifle has a 34" barrel as opposed to a standard length barrel of 30" and Burt Lancaster's character, Bob Valdez, in the movie ''Valdez Is Coming''.<ref name=JT/>
−	The Deer Gun was chambered for [[9x19mm Parabellum]] and was loaded by ''unscrewing the barrel'' and inserting the next round to fire.  [[Spray and pray]], baby; spray and pray.	+	As a result of ''Quigley Down Under'' a Sharps match is held annually every year in Forsyth, Montana known as the "Quigley Match". A 44-inch target is placed at 1,000 yards for each shooter, reminiscent of a scene from the movie.<ref name=wvz>Van Zwoll, Wayne (2008). ''Hunter's Guide to Long-Range Shooting.'' Stackpole Books. pp. 27–28. ISBN 978-0-8117-3314-4.</ref> Theater Crafts Industry went so far as to say, "In Quigley Down Under, which we did in 1990, the Sharps rifle practically co-stars with Tom Selleck."<ref>TCI: the business of entertainment technology & design, Volume 29(1995)</ref>  This statement was echoed by gunwriters including [[John Taffin]] in ''Guns'' and Lionel Atwill in ''Field & Stream''.<ref name=JT>Taffin, John (1994). "The Sharps 1874". Guns Magazine (Harris) 41 (5): 60–63. "That movie has done for the Sharps rifle what Dirty Harry did for the Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum back in the 1970's."</ref><ref>Atwill, Lionel (1997). "The Return of the Buffalo Gun". Field & Stream 102 (9): 50–53. "In truth Tom Selleck must share credit with the movie's real stars; Quigley's .45-110 Sharps"</ref> Gun manufacturers such as [[Davide Pedersoli]] and [[Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Company]] have credited these movies with an increase in demand for those rifles.<ref name=JT/>
−	==References==	+	The Sharps carbine is also seen in the 2010 remake of ''True Grit'', used by Matt Damon's character LaBoeuf. During the course of the film, the carbine's accuracy becomes a source of debate between LaBoeuf and "Rooster" Cogburn; at the film's conclusion, the accuracy of the gun is validated.
		+
		+	== Resources ==
		+	{{missing resources}}
		+
		+	==See also==
		+	*[[.50-90 Sharps]]
		+	*[[Beecher's Bibles]]
		+	*[[Berdan rifle]]
		+	*[[List of American military firearms]]
		+	*[[Spencer rifle]]
		+	*[http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Sharps_Rifle Listing of Sharps rifles in movies] at the IMDB.
		+
		+	== Notes ==
	{{references}}		{{references}}
−	== External links ==	+	==References==
−	* [http://www.justguns.com/handguns/fp-45-liberator.html The Liberator Pistol] at JustGuns.com{{dead link}}	+	* Coates, Earl J., and Thomas S. Dean. ''An Introduction to Civil War Small Arms''. Gettysburg, Penn.: Thomas Publications, 1990. ISBN 0-939631-25-3.
−	* [http://vintageordnance.homestead.com/FP45_Firing.html "Safe handling of Liberator pistols and modern replicas"].  Vintage Ordnance Company.	+	* Sellers, Frank M. ''Sharps Firearms''. North Hollywood, Calif: Beinfeld Pub, 1978. ISBN 0-917714-12-1.
−	* [http://www.liberatorpistolbook.com/ ''The Liberator Pistol'', by Ralph Hagan]	+	* Smith, Winston O. ''The Sharps Rifle, Its History, Development and Operation''. New York: W. Morrow & Company, 1943.
		+
		+	==External links==
		+	* [http://www.svartkrutt.net/articles/vis.php?id=19 Sharps Model 1874 - Background history]
		+	* [http://www.svartkrutt.net/articles/vis.php?id=20 Sharps Model 1874 - Shooting and reloading]
		+	* http://shilohrifle.com/
−	[[Category:Insurgency weapons]]	+	{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharps Rifle}}
−	[[Category:World War II firearms]]	+	[[Category:American firearms]]
−	[[Category:Single shot pistols]]	+	[[Category:single-shot firearms]]
−	[[Category:.45 pistols]]	+	[[Category:rifles]]
−	[[Category:American pistols]]	+	[[Category:carbines]]
−	[[Category:crude firearms]]	+	[[Category:American Civil War firearms]]
		+	[[Category:Early firearms]]
		+	[[Category:antique firearms]]

---

Revision as of 12:01, 13 June 2013

Sharps rifle
Type	rifle / carbine
Land of Origin	United States
Specifications
Length	47 inches (1,200 mm)
Weight	9.5 lb (4.3 kg)
Cartridge	Originally a .52-caliber 475-grain projectile with 50-grain (3.2 g) cartridge; later converted to .45-70 Government in 1873.
Action	Falling Block
Rate of Fire	8–10 shots/minute
Muzzle velocity	1,200 ft/s (370 m/s)
Effective Range	500 yd (460 m)
Max. Range	1,000 yd (910 m)
Sights	open ladder
Service History
In service	1850–1881
Used by	Union Army, Confederate Army
Wars	American Civil War
Production History
Designer	Christian Sharps
Design Date	1848
Manufacturer	A. S. Nippes, Robbins & Lawrence Company, Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company, many others
No. Built	over 100,000
Variants	also produced as a carbine

The Sharps rifles were a series of large bore single shot rifles that began with a design by Christian Sharps in 1848. Sharps rifles have been historically renowned for long range and high accuracy. By 1874 the rifle was available in a variety of calibers and had been adopted by the armies of a number of nations and was one of the few successful designs to transition from paper to metallic cartridge use.

Literally dozens of reproductions of the Sharps rifle are currently made by different rifle companies and have become an icon of the Old West by their use in a number of Western movies.

Contents 1 History 2 Sharps military rifles and carbines 2.1 Sharps military carbine 3 Sharps sporting rifles 4 In film 5 Resources 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links

History

Sharps' initial rifle was patented September 17, 1848^[1] and manufactured by A. S. Nippes at Mill Creek, (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania.

The second model used the Maynard tape primer, and surviving examples are marked Edward Maynard - Patentee 1845. In 1850 the second model was brought to the Robbins & Lawrence Company of Windsor, Vermont where the Model 1851 was developed for mass production. Rollin White of the R&L Co. invented the knife-edge breech block and self-cocking device for the "box-lock" Model 1851. This is referred to as the "First Contract", which was for 5,000 Model 1851 carbines - of which approximately 1,650 were produced by R&L in Windsor.

In 1851 the "Second Contract" was made for 15,000 rifles and the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company was organized as a holding company with $1,000 in capital and with John C. Palmer as president, Christian Sharps as engineer, and Richard S. Lawrence as master armorer and superintendent of manufacturing. Sharps was to be paid a royalty of $1 per firearm and the factory was built on R&L's property in Hartford, Connecticut.

The Model 1851 was replaced in production by the Model 1853. All Sharps rifles were manufactured in Windsor until October 1856. Christian Sharps left the company in 1853; Richard S. Lawrence continued as the chief armorer until 1872 and developed the various Sharp models and their improvements that made the rifle famous.

The 1874-pattern Sharps was a particularly popular rifle that led to the introduction of several derivatives in quick succession. It handled a large number of .40- to .50-caliber cartridges in a variety of loadings and barrel lengths.^[2][3]

Hugo Borchardt designed the Sharps-Borchardt Model 1878, the last rifle made by the Sharps Rifle Co. before its closing in 1881.

Reproductions of the paper cartridge Sharps M1859 and M1863 Rifle and Carbine, the metallic cartridge 1874 Sharps Rifle, and Sharps-Borchardt Model 1878 are being manufactured today. They are used in Civil War re-enacting, hunting and target shooting.

Sharps military rifles and carbines

The military Sharps rifle (also known as the Berdan Sharps rifle) was a falling block rifle used during and after the American Civil War.^[4] Along with being able to use a standard percussion cap, the Sharps had a fairly unusual pellet primer feed. This was a device which held a stack of pelleted primers and flipped one over the nipple each time the trigger was pulled and the hammer fell - making it much easier to fire a Sharps from horseback than a gun employing individually loaded percussion caps.

The Sharps Rifle was produced by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut. It was used in the Civil War by the U.S. Army Marksman, known popularly as "Berdan's Sharpshooters" in honor of their leader Hiram Berdan. The Sharps made a superior sniper weapon of greater accuracy than the more commonly issued muzzle-loading rifled muskets. This was due mainly to the higher rate of fire of the breech loading mechanism and superior quality of manufacture.

At this time however, many officers were distrustful of breech-loading weapons on the grounds that they would encourage men to waste ammunition. In addition, the Sharps Rifle was expensive to manufacture (three times the cost of a muzzle-loading Springfield rifle) and so only 11,000 of the Model 1859s were produced. Most were unissued or given to sharpshooters, but the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves (which still carried the old-fashioned designation of a "rifle regiment") carried them until being mustered out in 1864.

Sharps military carbine

The carbine version was very popular with the cavalry of both the Union and Confederate armies and was issued in much larger numbers than the full length rifle. The falling block action lent itself to conversion to the new metallic cartridges developed in the late 1860s, and many of these converted carbines in .50-70 Government were used during the Indian Wars in the decades immediately following the Civil War.^[4]

Some Civil War-issue carbines had an unusual feature: a coffee mill in the stock.^[5]

Unlike the Sharps rifle, the carbine was very popular and almost 90,000 were produced. By 1863, it was the most common weapon carried by Union cavalry regiments, although in 1864 many were replaced by 7-shot Spencer carbines. Some Sharps clones were produced by the Confederates in Richmond. Quality was generally poorer and they normally used brass fittings instead of iron.

Sharps sporting rifles

Sharps made sporting versions from the late 1840s until the late 1880s. After the American Civil War, converted Army surplus rifles were made into custom firearms, and the Sharps factory produced Models 1869 and 1874 in large numbers for commercial buffalo hunters and frontiersmen. These large-bore rifles were manufactured with some of the most powerful black powder cartridges ever made. Sharps also fabricated special long-range target versions for the then-popular Creedmore style of 1,000-yard (910 m) target shooting. Many modern black powder cartridge silhouette shooters use original and replica Sharps rifles to target metallic silhouettes cut in the shapes of animals at ranges up to 500 meters. Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Company, and C Sharps Arms of Big Timber, Montana, have been manufacturing reproductions of the Sharps Rifle since 1983 and 1979, respectively.

In film

Some movies which showed the strengths of the Sharps rifle are Billy Two Hats (1974), Rancho Deluxe (1975), Valdez Is Coming (1971), Quigley Down Under (1990), True Grit (the 2010 version). In the 1990 western Quigley Down Under Tom Selleck's title character's Sharps rifle has a 34" barrel as opposed to a standard length barrel of 30" and Burt Lancaster's character, Bob Valdez, in the movie Valdez Is Coming.^[6]

As a result of Quigley Down Under a Sharps match is held annually every year in Forsyth, Montana known as the "Quigley Match". A 44-inch target is placed at 1,000 yards for each shooter, reminiscent of a scene from the movie.^[7] Theater Crafts Industry went so far as to say, "In Quigley Down Under, which we did in 1990, the Sharps rifle practically co-stars with Tom Selleck."^[8] This statement was echoed by gunwriters including John Taffin in Guns and Lionel Atwill in Field & Stream.^[6][9] Gun manufacturers such as Davide Pedersoli and Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Company have credited these movies with an increase in demand for those rifles.^[6]

The Sharps carbine is also seen in the 2010 remake of True Grit, used by Matt Damon's character LaBoeuf. During the course of the film, the carbine's accuracy becomes a source of debate between LaBoeuf and "Rooster" Cogburn; at the film's conclusion, the accuracy of the gun is validated.

Resources

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See also

• .50-90 Sharps
• Beecher's Bibles
• Berdan rifle
• List of American military firearms
• Spencer rifle
• Listing of Sharps rifles in movies at the IMDB.

Notes

References

• Coates, Earl J., and Thomas S. Dean. An Introduction to Civil War Small Arms. Gettysburg, Penn.: Thomas Publications, 1990. ISBN 0-939631-25-3.
• Sellers, Frank M. Sharps Firearms. North Hollywood, Calif: Beinfeld Pub, 1978. ISBN 0-917714-12-1.
• Smith, Winston O. The Sharps Rifle, Its History, Development and Operation. New York: W. Morrow & Company, 1943.

External links

• Sharps Model 1874 - Background history
• Sharps Model 1874 - Shooting and reloading
• http://shilohrifle.com/