Sharps rifle Sharps rifles were a series of large bore single shot rifle s that began with a design by Christian Sharps in 1848 . Sharps rifles have been historically renowned for long range and high accuracy . By 1874 the rifle was available in a variety of calibers and had been adopted by the armies of a number of nations and was one of the few successful designs to transition to metallic cartridge use . Reproductions of the Sharps rifle are currently made by different rifle companies and the rifle has become an icon of the Old West due to its use in a number of movies in the Western genre . History . Sharps ' initial rifle was patented September 12 , 1848 and manufactured by A . S . Nippes at Mill Creek , ( Philadelphia ) Pennsylvania . The second model used the Maynard tape primer , and surviving examples are marked Edward Maynard - Patentee 1845 . In 1850 the second model was brought to the Robbins & Lawrence Company of Windsor , Vermont where the Model 1851 was developed for mass production . Rollin White of the R & L Co . invented the knife - edge breech block and self - cocking device for the " box - lock " Model 1851 . This is referred to as the " First Contract " , which was for 5 , 000 Model 1851 carbines - of which approximately 1 , 650 were produced by R & L in Windsor . In 1851 the " Second Contract " was made for 15 , 000 rifles and the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company was organized as a holding company with $ 1 , 000 in capital and with John C . Palmer as president , Christian Sharps as engineer , and Richard S . Lawrence as master armorer and superintendent of manufacturing . Sharps was to be paid a royalty of $ 1 per firearm and the factory was built on R & L ' s property in Hartford , Connecticut . The Model 1851 was replaced in production by the Model 1853 . All Sharps rifles were manufactured in Windsor until October 1856 . Christian Sharps left the company in 1853 ; Richard S . Lawrence continued as the chief armorer until 1872 and developed the various Sharp models and their improvements that made the rifle famous . The 1874 - pattern Sharps was a particularly popular rifle that led to the introduction of several derivatives in quick succession . It handled a large number of . 40 - to . 50 - caliber cartridges in a variety of loadings and barrel lengths . Hugo Borchardt designed the Sharps - Borchardt Model 1878 , the last rifle made by the Sharps Rifle Co . before its closing in 1881 . Reproductions of the paper cartridge Sharps M1859 and M1863 Rifle and Carbine , the metallic cartridge 1874 Sharps Rifle , and Sharps - Borchardt Model 1878 are being manufactured today . They are used in Civil War re - enacting , hunting and target shooting . Sharps military rifles and carbines . The military Sharps rifle ( also known as the Berdan Sharps rifle ) was a falling block rifle used during and after the American Civil War . Along with being able to use a standard percussion cap , the Sharps had a fairly unusual pellet primer feed . This was a device which held a stack of pelleted primers and flipped one over the nipple each time the trigger was pulled and the hammer fell - making it much easier to fire a Sharps from horseback than a gun employing individually loaded percussion caps . The Sharps Rifle was produced by the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company in Hartford , Connecticut . It was used in the Civil War by the U . S . Army Marksman , known popularly as " Berdan ' s Sharpshooters " in honor of their leader Hiram Berdan . The Sharps made a superior sniper weapon of greater accuracy than the more commonly issued muzzle - loading rifled musket s . This was due mainly to the higher rate of fire of the breech loading mechanism and superior quality of manufacture . At this time however , many officers were distrustful of breech - loading weapons on the grounds that they would encourage men to waste ammunition . In addition , the Sharps Rifle was expensive to manufacture ( three times the cost of a muzzle - loading Springfield rifle ) and so only 11 , 000 of the Model 1859s were produced . Most were unissued or given to sharpshooters , but the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves ( which still carried the old - fashioned designation of a " rifle regiment " ) carried them until being mustered out in 1864 . Sharps military carbine . The carbine version was very popular with the cavalry of both the Union and Confederate armies and was issued in much larger numbers than the full length rifle . The falling block action lent itself to conversion to the new metallic cartridges developed in the late 1860s , and many of these converted carbines in . 50 - 70 Government were used during the Indian Wars in the decades immediately following the Civil War . Some Civil War - issue carbines had an unusual feature : a coffee mill in the stock . Unlike the Sharps rifle , the carbine was very popular and almost 90 , 000 were produced . By 1863 , it was the most common weapon carried by Union cavalry regiments , although in 1864 many were replaced by 7 - shot Spencer carbines . Some Sharps clones were produced by the Confederates in Richmond . Quality was generally poorer and they normally used brass fittings instead of iron . Sharps sporting rifles . Sharps made sporting versions from the late 1840s until the late 1880s . After the American Civil War , converted Army surplus rifles were made into custom firearms , and the Sharps factory produced Models 1869 and 1874 in large numbers for commercial buffalo hunters and frontiersmen . These large - bore rifles were manufactured with some of the most powerful black powder cartridges ever made . Sharps also fabricated special long - range target versions for the then - popular Creedmore style of target shooting . Many modern black powder cartridge silhouette shooters use original and replica Sharps rifles to target metallic silhouette s cut in the shapes of animals at ranges up to 500 meters . Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Company , and C Sharps Arms of Big Timber , Montana , have been manufacturing reproductions of the Sharps Rifle since 1983 and 1979 , respectively . In film and television . Some movies which showed the strengths of the Sharps rifle are " Billy Two Hats " ( 1974 ) , Rancho Deluxe ( 1975 ) , " Valdez Is Coming " ( 1971 ) , " Quigley Down Under " ( 1990 ) , and " True Grit " ( 2010 ) . In the 1990 western " Quigley Down Under " , Tom Selleck ' s title character uses a Sharps rifle that has a 34 " barrel length , as opposed to the standard 30 " length . In " Valdez Is Coming " , Burt Lancaster ' s character , Bob Valdez , uses a Sharps against character Frank Tanner ' s men at 1200 yards . As a result of the popularity of the film " Quigley Down Under " , a Sharps match is held annually in Forsyth , Montana known as the " Quigley Match " . A 44 - inch target is placed at 1 , 000 yards for each shooter , remniscent of a scene from the movie . Theater Crafts Industry went so far as to say , " " In Quigley Down Under " , which we did in 1990 , the Sharps rifle practically co - stars with Tom Selleck . " This statement was echoed by gunwriters including John Taffin in " Guns " and Lionel Atwill in " Field & Stream " . Firearms manufacturers such as Davide Pedersoli and Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing Company have credited these movies with an increase in demand for those rifles . On television , the Sharps rifle plays a central role in the murder investigation in the pilot episode of the Longmire series ( 2012 ) . A Sharps is the weapon used in the murder , and its firing action is central to the climactic action sequence .