Gallager Cartridge Carbine

About the Gallager Cartridge Carbine

The Gallager Cartridge Carbine is a single-shot, breech-loading cavalry carbine, the late-war metallic-cartridge conversion of the percussion Gallager carbine. In March 1865 the U.S. Ordnance Department contracted Richardson & Overman to rework the design for the .56-50 Spencer rimfire cartridge, rechambering the barrels and replacing the percussion nipple with a fixed firing pin and a spring-loaded extractor for reliable case ejection. Operated by dropping the trigger-guard lever to slide the barrel forward and tilt it for loading, the conversion cured the fired-case sticking that plagued the original percussion model. All 5,000 contract guns were delivered between May and June 1865, too late to see Civil War service.

The percussion Gallager was widely disliked by cavalrymen for its tendency to jam when fired cases swelled and stuck in the chamber. The 1865 metallic-cartridge conversion finally solved that flaw, but it arrived just as the Civil War ended and demobilization flooded the market with surplus arms, ending the design's brief second life.

Gallager Cartridge Carbine specifications

Sources vary on the exact chambering of the 1865 conversion, describing it as a .50/.52 rimfire fed by the Spencer rimfire cartridge (.56-50 / .56-52 Spencer). Overall Gallager production reached about 22,728 carbines, of which 5,000 were the cartridge-conversion guns.