Christian Sharps 4 Barrel

by Kevin Callahan

Title

Christian Sharps 4 Barrel

Artist

Kevin Callahan

Medium

Painting - Watercolor

Description

This derringer was a very popular pocket pistol manufactured by C Sharps Arms from 1859-1874. The little pistols were particularly popular with Civil War troops as a back up arm.
It is very difficult to find out a whole lot about quantities and year of manufacture. The serial number on this gun indicates that it is in the Model 4B category. Possibly made in the late 1860s.

My gun is in .30 rimfire but they were also made in .22 and .32 rim as well. The term pepperbox comes from popular 4-barrel pistols manufactured during the Gold Rush era. Most guns back then were single barrel and in some cases
2-barrel. The pepperbox was a big jump forward in hand held firepower, 4 shots without reloading! The pepperbox had a cluster of (usually) 4 barrels that were turned by hand after each shot. The early pepperboxes were caplock muzzleloaders as the metallic cartridge had yet to be invented. In some cases the barrels revolved by pulling the trigger. Such pistols were certainly the antecedents of the Colts revolvers. The Sharps derringer barrels are static and use a wonderfully engineered firing pin. In this case it is mounted on the nose of the hammer and each time the hammer is pulled back the firing pin rotates one-quarter turn. Pretty slick.

The first time I held a Sharps 4-barrel, was when my minister in Pennsylvania handed me one in .22 that was owned by his grandparents. They had been missionaries in Africa early in the 1900s and carried it as protection. It seemed very puny to me in a continent that had hippos, elephants, and wild tribes but what the heck? It seems the main spring was broken at some time and Mel asked if I could fix it. I knew a gunsmith who could make springs and in a couple of weeks I handed Mel a working gun. A couple years later while haunting the gun shops I found mine. Oddly enough it seems that over the years I have owned it my Sharps 4-barrels has increased in value far beyond what I paid.

The “irony” of the little pocket pistols is that Sharps was most famous for their manufacture of the giant single-shot “Buffalo” rifles in the old west. Some of their massive calibers were as large as .50-120 and .45-120, which are respectively 50 and 45 calibers in front of a whopping 120 grains of black powder. In a further bit of irony these massively large calibers were offered for sale AFTER nearly all the buffalo had been killed off.

Uploaded

December 30th, 2013

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