page_title: Rifles in the American Civil War
section_title: Other rifles used
hierarchical_section_title: Rifles in the American Civil War / Types / Other rifles used
caption_attribution_description: English: M1866 Rifle, Allin Conversion SPAR994 M1866 Rifle, Allin Conversion .50 caliber. 1866. 25,000 made. In 1866 the Allin system was refined and simplified. The second of the 'Trapdoor' series, this model featured a new rifled liner in a Model 1863 musket, reducing the caliber to .50.
context_page_description: During the American Civil War, an assortment of small arms found their way onto the battlefield. Though the muzzle-loading percussion cap rifle was the most numerous weapon, being standard issue for the Union and Confederate armies, many other firearms, ranging from the single-shot breech-loading Sharps and Burnside rifles to the Spencer and the Henry rifles, two of the world's first repeating rifles, were issued by the hundreds of thousands, mostly by the Union. The Civil War brought many advancements in firearms technology, most notably the widespread use of rifled barrels.
context_section_description: Other rifles used during the Civil War included the British P-1841-Bored Brunswick Rifle (not common), Burnside carbine (used only by cavalry), Henry rifle (very limited issue; many brought privately by individuals), and the Spencer rifle (used almost exclusively by cavalry).
  There were also the New Model 1859, 1863, and 1865 Sharps rifles and carbines, single-shot breechloaders. 12,000 rifles were issued to U.S. Army and Navy including to the 1st United States Sharpshooters and 2nd United States Sharpshooters under Hiram Berdan. However, the Sharps carbine was very common, with over 90,000 produced. The rifles differed from each other mainly in the different "actions" they had. Almost all rifles were made with iron barrels, while only some, like the Burnside, used steel, which then was expensive. The Frank Wesson .44 caliber rimfire breech-loader was bought by state governments or individuals, and used almost exclusively by cavalry.
  Model 1855 rifles were fairly common. Most of the regular army was equipped with them in 1861, and the Confederates had a few thousand that had been stored in Southern arsenals. They acquired more through battlefield pickups and would use them throughout the war (although the 1855 rifle was eventually replaced in the Union ranks by 1861 Springfields).
  The Model 1841 Mississippi Rifle, the progenitor of the Model 1855 and 1861 Springfield, was still used in the Civil War to a fair degree, especially by Confederate non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and sharpshooters.
  The Confederacy also produced a variety of weapons itself, standardizing on .58 caliber in 1862. These were usually clones of existing designs and tended to be poor quality due to shortages of raw material and skilled labor. Some such weapons included clones of the Sharps carbine, the Richmond/Fayetteville rifles (a Springfield clone) and imitations of Enfield rifles and musketoons.
  The only breech-loading rifle (not built as a carbine like the Burnside) firing a primed-metallic cartridge (a .50 cal. rimfire) made by the Federal Government (at Springfield Armory) and actually designed for issue to infantrymen was the Model 1865 Springfield Joslyn Rifle, of which only 3,007 were made. In fact, this rifle was the first breechloader ever made in any national armory that fired a primed metallic cartridge. It was basically a Joslyn Carbine action mated to a heavily modified 1863 Springfield barrel and stock. It was issued to disabled soldiers of the Veteran Reserve Corps very late in the war (April 1865) and likely was never used in action. However, it established the single-shot metallic cartridge breechloader as a standard infantry weapon, which eventually all modern armies adopted in one form or another. The US adopted the breechloading 1866 Springfield "Trapdoor" infantry rifle built from surplus rifle-musket parts after the war.
  The new repeater rifles would see fairly limited use in the Civil War. The first such weapon used by the US Army was the Model 1855 Colt Revolving Rifle (and a companion carbine), but it had a serious defect in that the gun would sometimes discharge several chambers at once, the extra rounds flying straight into the hand that was holding the barrel up. Some soldiers tried to get around this dangerous problem by loading only one chamber, however this defeated the purpose of having a repeater rifle. Most Colt Revolving Rifles were eventually sold off by the War Department for 55 cents just to get rid of them. The unfortunate experience the army had had with these led to a stigma against repeating rifles, combined with the old fear that they would encourage men to waste ammunition, forcing the already-strained logistical system to provide even more ammunition.
  The Spencer rifle was the first successful magazine-fed repeating rifle used by the US Army. After attending a demonstration firing organized by the rifle's designer, Christopher Spencer, President Abraham Lincoln was impressed enough to give it his approval and ordered its adoption. Firing the .56-56 Spencer cartridge, the seven-shot Spencer was produce
caption: In 1865 Springfield Armory began converting muzzleloaders to breech-loaders, which became known as Allin conversions (after Erskine S. Allin)
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