In firearm designs, the term single-shot refers to guns that can hold only a single round of ammunition inside and thus must be reloaded manually after every shot. Compared to multi-shot repeating firearms ("repeaters"), single-shot designs have no moving parts other than the trigger, hammer/firing pin or frizzen, and therefore do not need a sizable receiver behind the barrel to accommodate a moving action, making them far less complex and more robust than revolvers or magazine/belt-fed firearms, but also with much slower rates of fire.
The Springfield Model 1861 was a Minié-type rifled musket used by the United States Army during the American Civil War. Commonly referred to as the "Springfield". It was the most widely used Union Army shoulder weapon during the Civil War, favored for its range, accuracy, and reliability.
A rifled musket, rifle musket, or rifle-musket is a type of firearm made in the mid-19th century. Originally the term referred only to muskets that had been produced as a smoothbore weapon and later had their barrels replaced with rifled barrels. The term later included rifles that directly replaced, and were of the same design overall as, a particular model of smoothbore musket.
The Kammerlader, or "chamber loader", was the first Norwegian breech-loading rifle, and among the first breech loaders adopted for use by an armed force anywhere in the world. A single-shot black-powder rifle, the kammerlader was operated with a crank mounted on the side of the receiver. This made it much quicker and easier to load than the weapons previously used. Kammerladers quickly gained a reputation for being fast and accurate rifles, and would have been a deadly weapon against massed ranks of infantry.
Sharps rifles are a series of large-bore, single-shot, falling-block, breech-loading rifles, beginning with a design by Christian Sharps in 1848 and ceasing production in 1881. They were renowned for long-range accuracy. By 1874, the rifle was available in a variety of calibers, and it was one of the few designs to be successfully adapted to metallic cartridge use. The Sharps rifles became icons of the American Old West with their appearances in many Western-genre films and books. Perhaps as a result, several rifle companies offer reproductions of the Sharps rifle.
The origins of the modern British military rifle are within its predecessor the Brown Bess musket. While a musket was largely inaccurate over 100 yards (91 m), due to a lack of rifling and a generous tolerance to allow for muzzle-loading, it was cheap to produce and could be loaded quickly. The use of volley or mass firing by troops meant that the rate of fire took precedence over accuracy.
The 5th New York Infantry Regiment, also known as Duryée's Zouaves, was a volunteer infantry regiment that served in the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. Modeled, like other Union and Confederate infantry regiments, on the French Zouaves of Crimean War fame, its tactics and uniforms were different from those of the standard infantry.
The Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket was a .577 calibre Minié-type muzzle-loading rifled musket, used by the British Empire from 1853 to 1867; after which many were replaced in service by the cartridge-loaded Snider–Enfield rifle.
The Springfield Model 1865 was an early breech-loading rifle manufactured by U.S. Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was a modification of the Springfield Model 1861. It was later replaced with the Springfield Model 1866.
The Springfield Model 1866 was the second iteration of the Allin-designed trapdoor breech-loading mechanism. Originally developed as a means of converting rifle muskets to breechloaders, the Allin modification ultimately became the basis for the definitive Springfield Model 1873, the first breech-loading rifle adopted by the United States War Department for manufacture and widespread issue to U.S. troops.
The Springfield Model 1868 was one of the rifles which used the trapdoor breechblock design developed by Erskine S. Allin.
The M1841 Mississippi rifle is a muzzle-loading percussion rifle used in the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War.
The Minié rifle was an important infantry rifle of the mid-19th century. A version was adopted in 1849 following the invention of the Minié ball in 1847 by the French Army captain Claude-Étienne Minié of the Chasseurs d'Orléans and Henri-Gustave Delvigne. The bullet was designed to allow rapid muzzle loading of rifles and was an innovation that brought about the widespread use of the rifle as the main battlefield weapon for individual soldiers. The French adopted it following difficulties encountered by the French army in North Africa, where their muskets were overtaken in range by long-barreled weapons which were handcrafted by their Algerian opponents. The Minié rifle belonged to the category of rifled muskets.
During the American Civil War, an assortment of small arms found their way onto the battlefield. Though the muzzleloader percussion cap rifled musket 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 advances in firearms technology, most notably the widespread use of rifled barrels.
Springfield musket may refer to any one of several types of small arms produced by the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, for the United States armed forces. In modern times, these muskets are commonly referred to by their date of design followed by the name Springfield. However, U.S. Ordnance Department documentation at the time did not use "Springfield" in the name.
The Lorenz rifle was an Austrian rifle used in the mid 19th century. It was used in the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859 and the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, and also featured prominently in the American Civil War.
The term Joslyn Rifle refers to a series of rifles produced in the mid-19th century. The term is often used to refer specifically to the Joslyn Model 1861/1862, which was the first mass-produced breech-loading rifle produced at the Springfield Armory.
The Springfield Model 1855 was a rifled musket widely used in the American Civil War. It exploited the advantages of the new conical Minié ball, which could be deadly at over 1,000 yards (910 m). It was a standard infantry weapon for Union and Confederates alike, until the Springfield Model 1861 supplanted it, obviating the use of the insufficiently weather resistant Maynard tape primer.
In firearms, a trapdoor is a form of breech-loading mechanism for rifles in which a hinged breechblock rotates up and forward, resembling the movement of a trapdoor. The Springfield models 1865 and 1873 were best known for first employing this type of action.
The 38th New York Infantry Regiment was a two-year infantry regiment in the U.S. Army during the American Civil War.
