The first Sharps rifle -- awesome

[mongrel]

I wouldn't know and don't care if the price on this GunBroker item is excessive. This is a piece of history like most of us will never, ever see. I wonder how many of these guns have even survived to the present day.

Obviously this is a radically different thing from the Sharps percussion and cartridge rifles we're accustomed to seeing. This is a basic idea, worked out in metal and wood, with a lot of refinement and improvement yet to be done. Thankfully, unlike many inventors with ideas probably just as good, Christian Sharps was fortunate enough to secure the various sorts of assistance he needed to finance and build the rifle he had in mind, working out the details as he went until "Sharps rifle" described not only a firearm but a standard of accuracy that shooters refer to even in modern times.

But this was the very first, with not much more than a handful of them made and a whole lot less than that around today. Enjoy.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=211557677

[graybear]

You know, if I had the money, I think I'd get that and shot it just to see how it compared w/ my 1874 Pedersoli. That's one interesting pc.

[beowulf]

that is one very interesting piece ! would`nt mind getting my paws on it just long enough to really look it over !

[old salt]

dog gone it mongerl you had to go and post this, I have been all day trying to fine something to post on This Day in History, and have not found any thing yet. Now I will have to see what I can find about this shaps.
Thanks for the post

[voyageur1688]

  That is one strange rifle. Love ta have it in my hands even just for a few minutes. Did it use a paper cartridge? Lotta questions on this one.
Voy

[Hawken50]

  Wow,thanks fer posting this oh great devil pup.Makes my 74 sharps look modern.Reminds me of another rifle though....maybe a peabody?Shoot,now i'm a gonna have to do some research.

[mongrel]

Well, what Rev and I are puzzling over, over at the Border Camp, is the "automatic disc primer". It isn't a variation of the Maynard tape priming mechanism; the first Sharps rifle to use the Maynard system was the successor to this model, the 1850 or 2nd Model. Flayderman is fairly clear that whatever this design is, it's nothing similar to the Maynard. Presumably as the hammer is cocked a cap is fed out and located on the nipple, or at least over the flash hole (maybe there's no actual nipple ), but the exact how-to of it is eluding us.

I'm going to root around on the internet and see if there isn't some info that will make everything clear.

[mongrel]

I wasn't able to find doodly-squat other than some fairly generic pictures of this model rifle, so I slightly abused the "Ask Seller A Question" feature that GunBroker offers and shot an e-mail to the outfit selling the rifle. The auction description says the capping device works. I apologized for not being in the financial league to ever buy a rifle like this, and for my question therefore being sort of a waste of the Jackson Armory folks' time, but I explained that I have several very interested fellow gun nuts trying to figure out how the capper works and that we would all be very appreciative of a quick explanation if it might be possible.

What the heck, they're gun people -- they ought to understand the deep burning desire some of us have, to know things like this.

[mongrel]

Colin Stolzer (CowboyCS) was kind enough to send a link to thefreelibrary.com, from which I copied the following paragraph that answers many questions:

One of the most interesting features found on the Model 1849 Sharps is its "wheel primer." Located on the right sight of the rifle's lock, this circular device held 18 No. 10-sized percussion caps, which were manually placed over spring fingers on the wheel. To prime this wheel it must be removed from the lock. To remove it from the lock, the wheel is wound clockwise against its spring until it catches in a notch cut in the wheel housing of the stock. Once loaded, the wheel may then be replaced into position in the lock area where spring pressure causes the wheel to revolve counterclockwise when the rifle is cocked. As the wheel travels through the priming box, a cap is pulled off of the fingers by the priming box lip. The removed cap then falls downward, in an upright position, to the end of the cap channel where it is held in proper position by a small spring. When the breechblock is raised after a cartridge (these early Sharps' used paper cartridges, unlike the later percussion model's linen-wrapped cartridges) is inserted, the nipple was elevated under the cap and pushed into firing position with the closing of the block. This system was not used for long, however, as the size of the caps used was of vital importance of flawless operation.

Thanks so much Colin!

[Otter]

WOW, as a poor student of that era of weapons this post has been a real boon. Thanks!!

[ThunderHeart]

    That is a mighty interesting rifle for sure!

[Micanopy]

Thats really something!

[Mouse]

Thanks for posting the link, and for following up on the info, Mongrel.  This has been most interesting indeed.

[heatherhistorian]

Very interesting.  You hear about these, but I hadn't ever seen one...very different...

[mongrel]

The outfit selling this rifle, Jackson Armory, in Texas, offers a fairly large number of old, unusual, and often very rare firearms that are within the scope of this forum's basic theme. Usually these guns are in very nice condition and for the sake of attracting potential bidders the sellers provide a really good variety of pictures. I'll look and see what else they've got on the block and keep an eye out for future items worth bringing to everyone's attention. One or two things I've seen them offer, in the past, make this Sharps look "bleh" -- I've studied a lot of very unique antique guns and even my reaction to the ones I'm thinking of was basically