Sharps Model 1874 Rifle
Unlike the three preceding long guns, the Sharps Model 1874 was not a repeating rifle. A single-shot breech-loader, Sharps earned the reputation of being some of the most accurate and powerful rifles on the Great Plains. Using the brawny .45-70 Government cartridge, the Model 1874 could deliver a terrific wallop by propelling a 500-grain bullet more than 1,000 yards. Other incarnations of the rifle, such as the “Big Fifty,” made use of even more monstrous cartridges, but fell out of favor with the introduction of smokeless powder. In practice, basically-trained shooters could routinely drop targets at distances up to 500 yards with the Model 1874.
Christian Sharps, a career-gunsmith, designed his first rifle in 1848. Over the next thirty-three years, various versions of Sharps’s initial design were patented or manufactured by a variety of companies. The initial model was produced in Philadelphia, with subsequent versions released in Vermont and Connecticut. Although used extensively throughout the Civil War, Sharps rifles grew in popularity with the introduction of the Model 1874, which earned the reputation of being an accurate and reliable large-bore weapon. Military and sporting variants of the Sharps rifle appeared over the years and were some of the most widely-used breech-loaders in the Old West.
Renegade Indians were one of the greatest threats faced by white settlers following the Civil War. During the 1860s, most Native American raiders resigned themselves to using surplus weapons, such as aging muzzle-loaders. Nonetheless, scrupulous traders routinely sold improved firearms to many tribes, with lever-action repeaters becoming the favored weapons of many warbands.
While these carbines were used with devastating effect, long-range rifles, like the Sharps Model 1874, could keep repeater-wielding marauders at bay. Big-bore Sharps rifles also played a prominent role in the destruction of wild buffalo herds, a development that many historians cite as the death knell of Indian resistance on the frontier.