New Hampshire Gun Forum

breechloading 1859 Sharps Berdan rifle



While growing up, I was fascinated with the era between the French and Indian War, and the Civil War. I’m a fan of all types of historic blackpowder firearms, but at that time, I was enamored with the breechloading 1859 Sharps Berdan rifle. In comparison to today’s rifles, it was the M14 DMR of it’s era.

The Civil War gave us a lot of new technology. The Sharps rifles were some of the best rifles but The Henry Rifle by Winchester and the Spencer rifle and Carbine were also great advances. The rifled Muzzle loaders with a paper cartridge with the Minie Ball were used by most of the soldiers on both sides. These rifled muskets were very deadly at further ranges than the Officers on both sided could realize thus the death tolls were very high because the tactics learned in previous wars using smooth bore were outdated but were still used by both armies.