Sharps · Carbine
Sharps Model 1853 Slant-Breech Carbine
Falling block · .52 Caliber Percussion · introduced 1853
Also known as John Brown Sharps, Beecher's Bible, Sharps Slant-Breech Carbine
About the Sharps Model 1853 Slant-Breech Carbine
The Sharps Model 1853 Slant-Breech is a single-shot, breech-loading percussion carbine designed by Christian Sharps and built by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Connecticut. Chambered in .52 caliber and fed a linen or paper combustible cartridge ignited by the patented Sharps pellet-primer system, it used a vertically sliding breechblock operated by a toggle-linked trigger-guard lever angled rearward, giving the model its slant-breech name. Fitted with a saddle ring for cavalry use, it offered a far higher rate of fire than the muzzle-loaders of its day.
Reverend Henry Ward Beecher declared the Sharps carbine held more moral power than a hundred Bibles, so the New England abolitionists who funded shipments to Kansas dubbed the rifles Beecher's Bibles and crated them as books to slip them past pro-slavery checkpoints on the Missouri River.
Sharps Model 1853 Slant-Breech Carbine specifications
General
- Type
- Carbine
- Action
- Falling block
- Firing mechanism
- Percussion
- Trigger
- Single action
- Calibres
- .52 Caliber Percussion
- Magazine capacity
- 1 rounds
Dimensions
- Barrel length
- 546 mm (21.5 in)
- Overall length
- 953 mm (37.5 in)
- Weight (empty)
- 3.46 kg (7.63 lb)
Barrel
- Rifling
- Right hand
- Grooves
- 6
Materials
- Barrel
- Steel
- Receiver / frame
- Steel
- Stock
- Walnut
- Finish
- blued
Performance
- Muzzle velocity (typical)
- 290 m/s (951 fps)
- Effective range
- 180 m
History
- Introduced
- 1853
- Discontinued
- 1859
- Production status
- Discontinued
- Country of origin
- US
- Designer
- Christian Sharps
Features
- Saddle ring
- Vertically sliding breechblock
- Toggle link lever
- Sharps pellet primer
- Single shot breechloader
Widely known as the John Brown Sharps; roughly 900 examples were shipped to anti-slavery settlers during Bleeding Kansas in crates labeled BIBLES, earning the nickname Beecher's Bibles. John Brown carried Model 1853 carbines on his 1859 Harpers Ferry raid. A drawback of the slant-breech design was gas leakage at the breech as the block and barrel wore.
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