Sharps rifle

Sharps rifles are a family of large bore, single shot, falling block, breech loading rifles beginning with a design patented by Christian Sharps in 1848 and produced until 1881. Known for accuracy at long range, by 1874 they were available in a range of calibers and were among the few early breech loading designs successfully adapted to metallic cartridge ammunition. They entered military and civilian use from about 1850 and became closely associated with the American West, an association that later inspired modern reproduction models. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/