Sharpshooting Rifles of the American Civil War: Colt, Sharps, Spencer, and Whitworth (Weapon) by Martin Pegler
English | August 24th, 2017 | ISBN: 1472815912 | 80 pages | EPUB | 24.40 MB
At the outset of the American Civil War, the Union Army's sharpshooters were initially equipped with the M1855 Colt revolving rifle, but it was prone to malfunction. Instead, the North's sharpshooters preferred the Sharps rifle, an innovative breech-loading weapon capable of firing up to ten shots per minute – more than three times the rate of fire offered by the standard-issue Springfield .58-caliber rifled musket. Other Union sharpshooters were equipped with the standard-issue Springfield rifled musket or the .56-56-caliber Spencer Repeating Rifle.