"The Hall Rifle was the first breechloader adopted by the U.S Military and the first rifle made with fully interchangeable parts. The 1833 Hall Carbine was the first new arm adopted that used a percussion cap." -Excerpt from NRA American Rifleman Nov/Dec 1998
A Little History - The United States was the first country to adopt a breech loading rifle, the Hall. Though little know today, the Hall rifles and carbines played a significant role in the development of our republic. On A general scale America tended to copy other country's rifle designs, for example the Springfield 1903 was patterned after the German Mauser. Taking the lead by issuing A breech loading rifle was a big step for the U.S. military. The weapon the Hall replaced was the Brown Bess Musket. As most people know, the only advantage to shooting a smoothbore musket, is that it was faster than the Kentucky Rifle to load. But the rifle was accurate from 300-600 yards.
How the Hall Works - And this is where the Hall Rifle came into play, being a breechloader it was able to load much faster than the older style Kentucky Rifle. And the Hall Rifle used a percussion cap rather than a priming pan. The breechblock was hinged at the back of the rifle, and the release was positioned under the rifle, in front of the trigger guard. Once popped up the ball and powder were rammed back into the tilted breech, then the breech was shut, a percussion cap applied to the nipple, and the rifle was ready to fire!
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This Cowboy Chess Set is a really cool looking chess set, I want to get one just to put in one of the rooms in my house. It's got a really cool wooden box that the theme chess pieces sit in and the pieces are pretty good looking detail wise.
The Brown Bess was the most popular musket of all time, it saw service as your everyday British laymans gun from early 1700's to mid 1800's. These smoothbore muskets were very, extremely, inaccurate. Have you ever wondered why the British armies stood toe to toe with their enemies and shot each other down like cows? This musket is the reason why! The Brown Bess, just like most other smoothbore guns, was designed long before rifling was discovered. Rifling is a fundamental part of accuracy that if done without will leave you with a group of 1 foot at 15 feet!
All of these 1874 Sharps Rifles have double set triggers except the Sharps Cavalry Carbine. For those of you who don't know, double set triggers are a feature that is found on high quality long range time period rifles. How it works is you have two sets of triggers, the rear trigger fires the gun and what the front trigger is for is to lighten the amount of pull you need to make the gun go off.