Sharps and Hankins

Christian Sharps’ personal career had separated from that of Palmer and the Sharps Rifle Company a decade before the War. In 1853 Sharps moved to Philadelphia, doing business as “C. Sharps & Co.” In association with Nathan A. Bolles and Ira B. Eddy he moved into a large four story 140 by 40-feet brick factory building on 30th street at the western end of a wire suspension bridge. Today, the double decked Spring Garden Street bridge passes the same point, over the Schuylkill river. Forging was done in the basement, the second floor was used for barrel drilling, the third for tool and small parts making, and the top floor, making best use of the last rays of light each day, for assembly and finishing. A 75 HP steam engine moved the machinery, and in 1859 the capacity of the factory was described (Edwin T. Freedley, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures, 1859) as 1,000 rifles a month. The rifles hopefully referred to by Sharps, who doubtless was the source of information, were patented January 25, 1859, No. 22752 and July 9, 1861, No. 32790. In 1862 Sharps had gone into partnership with William C. Hankins and it is by the firm name of Sharps & Hankins that these unusual Civil War rifles and carbines are known.
Using a rimfire metallic cartridge, they were breechloading single shots, in which the frame extended far under the barrel, and when the lever was swung down from its position of forming the trigger guard, the barrel slid forward for loading. Small pocket pistols were made generally on this form. Sharps also, some time subsequent to the introduction of the Smith &

The Walch-Lindsay pistols described on page 283. The .36 caliber or Navy size revolver has ridges on the cylinder that carry the flash forward to the charge.

Beside breech hoop of giant 300-pound Parrott Rifle are racked four Sharps & Hankins leather-jacket navy rifles. Canvas cover is dropped when arms are not wanted to protect them from weather but has been looped up in this picture taken aboard U.S. gunboat. Army 1860 .44 Colt and cutlass are glamorously draped on breech elevating screw handle. Above is good example of issue S & H rifle. Muzzle band is thickness of the leather cover, helps hold it in place and supports front sight.

Wesson small revolvers, made such an arm but in percussion, not cartridge, form. Otherwise it looks much like a tip-up .32 rimfire Smith & Wesson. The Sharps pistols, while of much interest to collectors, were no more significant than any of a host of other small personal firearms made before or during the War. It is the Sharps & Hankins rifles and carbines, sometimes spoken of as Navy rifles, that are of main interest.
Sometime in the summer of 1862, as Holt and Owen mercilessly hewed away at the huge pile of arms contracts, Sharps and Hankins got their works in order and began to turn out long guns. Their offer to the new Secretary, Stanton, was very modest, and it was accepted. Ripley thereupon gave instructions to Major T. T. S. Laidley at Bridesburg Arsenal, as Frankford Arsenal was then known, in Philadelphia, to inspect 250 “of their improved carbines.” He was also told to get 200 cartridges for each, “a peculiar kind being required.” The carbines were $25, cartridges $20 per thousand. A year was to pass before the Army again ordered any, these being listed as “Sharp’s new pattern for metallic primed cartridges.” The order of September 12, 1863 issued by Major Laidley, specified price at $25 and 480,000 cartridges at $22.50 per thousand. The first lot of 250 was received September 9, 1862; the second lot November 5, 1863. The next Sharps & Hankins guns received by the Army were a milestone order of December 15, 1863, which lists the first .30-caliber shoulder arms to be obtained by our Army. They were delivered in 1865 some 30 years before the general issue of the “new” Krag-Jorgensen rifles of the 1890’s:

Ordnance Office, War Department Washington, December 15, 1863

Gentlemen: Your letter of the 12th instant is received. Please send the six carbines of three-tenths inch calibre of ball to Springleld Armory, direct addressed to Major Dyer. You may also send there the six carbines of .44 barrel, .52 chamber, .46 ball, with 1,000 rounds of cartridges of your own make for each gun, or such as you can prepare with the space allotted by the lever. Please prepare, with as much despatch as possible, four (or six if you can get the cartridge

into the bore in these of 55 or 60 grains) prepared for a ball of .4375 diameter, and in which the diameter of the chamber will be .44, for a ball arranged thus (diagram here) the bore will be .42. No cartridges will be required. Please advise this ofBce when you can forward each lot. The last one is wanted at as early a day as possible, and will be sent to Major Dyer, who will advise you of the depth of counter boring for each of the changes required.

Respectfully &c.,

George D. Ramsay,

Brigadier General, Chief of Ordnance Messrs. Sharp & Hankins

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The projectile shown is a long .44 bullet having an ogive of about two diameters, and a total length of at least three diameters. Three grease grooves of the V shape like the original Burton-bullet Minie are turned on the base, and the heel of the bullet is reduced to .4175. We once were shown an odd rimfire cartridge by Graham Burnside and tended to scoff at it as being made up out of a Krag gallery practice bullet, as it resembled that projectile very much. The Sharps & Hankins Springfield Armory designed .4375 carbine bullet also closely resembles the Krag gallery practice ball, except for being .44 instead of .30. Might not Sharps & Hankins have used the same style of ball, longer with better sectional density, in getting up their ammunition for the carbines of “three-tenths inch caliber?” A total of 17 special carbines were received January 2, 1865, and paid for January 17,1865. One listed mistakenly as “Sharps & Hankins Rimfire Sporting Carbine introduced 1868” by Phil Sharpe was in L.D. Satterlee’s collection, serial 6220, and marked (as instructed by Major Dyer) on the barrel “.55 gr.” The carbine-length barrel is partly leather covered.
Four basic Sharps & Hankins long guns have been noted; caliber is a nominal .52, taking the “No. 56” cartridge. The rifle bullet diameter was .55, that for the carbine only .54; as Colonel Lewis opines it was to reduce recoil in the lighter guns. “ . . . the Sharps & Hankins types shown (there were others) both had linen patches on the base of the bullets, the patch coming flush with the mouth of the case when the bullet was seated,” Colonel Lewis notes. “One variety of Sharps & Hankins had a round post in the middle of its base to center the patch, which had a corresponding hole.”
The S & H Rifle had a 32Vi-inch round barrel, with a forestock held by three oval bands. The bayonet stud below the muzzle was for the Dahlgren bowie knife bayonet or a brass-hilted saber bayonet of the basic French “light Minie” brass-hilted pattern which was made in Europe or by Collins or other makers, almost a standard and interchangeable pattern between foreign arms and the Colts, Sharps, Sharps & Hankins, etc. The muzzle socket of the Plymouth sword bayonet of course is much too big for these arms, being adapted to a .69 caliber arm. According to Sharpe, “Records show that some of these were on hand at the Navy Yard December 1866 and these were sold off at auction under an advertisement August 12, 1876.”
The “improved” Sharps & Hankins is improperly identified, but it is thought that the leather covering of the barrel was an “improvement” since tinned-finish exposed barrel carbines have also been observed. The hot dip tinning was certainly a more primitive finish, historically, and the leather covered barrel guns are much more numerous. The most common is the Navy carbine, having a barrel covered with leather and a muzzle ring of the thickness of the leather, to protect it at the front end. The buttstock is of well oiled walnut, and a sling swivel in almost all cases is set into the belly of the butt. The plate is curved brass; frame steel, casehardened. The carbine length barrel was 24 inches. But an Army tinned-finish carbine, with steel barrel burnished bright but with no traces of leather cover, and front sight fitted neatly to the uniform-diameter barrel, was sold at auction in Chicago about 1958 (Shore Galleries). The number is not recorded, but the barrel was noted as 22 inches long, original length.
These make three basic Sharps & Hankins guns, the long 32Vi-inch blued or browned barrel threeband Navy Rifle fitted for sword bayonet, the Navy or Army carbine, 24 inch leather-covered barrel, and the short 22-inch Army carbine with sling ring on the side of the frame. All are chambered for the Sharps & Hankins rimfire .52 cartridge. The fourth model of Sharps & Hankins seems to have been the 17 assorted special carbines in three basically different calibers: .30, .44, and .42, taking a bullet of unspecified diameter, of .46 diameter, and of .4375 diameter. The first and last are probably straight cased; the .44-46 being a bottleneck round on the standard .52 rimfire base.