Sharps Model 1855 Carbine

About the Sharps Model 1855 Carbine

The Sharps Model 1855 is a single-shot, breech-loading percussion carbine and the first Sharps pattern fitted with the Maynard patent automated tape priming system in place of the earlier Sharps pellet primer. Built on the distinctive slant-breech falling-block action designed by Christian Sharps, it loaded a linen or paper combustible cartridge from the breech, sheared open by the rising block. U.S. military examples were chambered in .52 caliber, while the large British contract guns were bored to .577 to match the P-1853 Enfield. Only about 6,796 Model 1855 carbines were produced, the great majority delivered to the British Army during the mid-1850s.

Adopted alongside the Springfield Model 1855, the gun shared the era's fashionable but troublesome Maynard tape primer, a roll of paper caps fed automatically over the nipple to speed loading. The system's poor weather resistance led both the U.S. and Sharps to revert to conventional percussion priming on later carbines.

Sharps Model 1855 Carbine specifications

The Maynard tape primer proved unreliable in field service and was abandoned on later Sharps models in favor of the pellet primer and separate percussion caps. British contract guns were later re-barreled to nominally .55 caliber with a faster 1:48 twist.