Christian Sharps invented the knife-edge breech block and self-cocking device for the “box-lock” Sharps Model 1851. In that year, Sharps manufactured and sold 20,000 units, using mass production techniques. The Model 1853 “Slanting Breech” Carbines became equipped with the Sharps-patented pellet primer system.
The Sharpes Model 1853 Carbines were nicknamed “Beecher’s Bibles,” after New York clergyman and abolitionist, Henry Ward Beecher. Ward and other northeastern abolitionists shipped 900 Sharps Carbines to Free Soil settlers Kansas in heavy crates marked BIBLES.
Thank you for the correction - it was the 1856 S&W Model 1 that used a bored through cylinder based upon the Rollin White patent that he came upon while working for the Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company.
Yes, and it wasn’t until 1872 that Colt’s was able to produce cartridge revolvers when White’s patent expired.
Before that only those who were granted patent rights were able to produce bored through cylinder cartridge revolvers.
S&W sued many patent infringers until Remington came out with the first big bore cartridge conversion revolver in 1868 under rights from the Rollin White patent, a .46 caliber version of S&W’s .22 short and .32 cal rimfire revolvers.
Still have never heard of a “Sharpes.”