Colt Model 1855

Colt 1855 Revolving Rifle (percussion) - .44 caliber

Colt 1855 Revolving Carbine (percussion) - .56 caliber

The Colt Revolving Rifle Model 1855 was an early repeating rifle design produced in 1855 by the Colt's Manufacturing Company. The design was based on the Colt Model 1855 Sidehammer revolver, being essentially a percussion cap and ball revolver with a rifle stock and extended barrel that holds five or six rounds in a variety of calibers from .40 to .64 inches. The culmination of several revolving rifle designs by Samuel Colt, the Model 1855 was among the first repeating weapons used by the US military. While offering a substantially higher rate of fire than infantry muzzleloaders and reasonably accurate, the Model 1855 (as well as other percussion cap revolving rifle designs) were unpopular primarily due to safety issues. The rifle was awkward to hold due to the nature of a percussion revolving cylinder meaning that hot gasses and debris would be thrown out of the front of the cylinder- typically not a problem when using a percussion revolver, but on a percussion revolving rifle meant that the shooter's off hand would be right in the path of any hot gas when holding the foregrip. In addition, revolving rifles (and percussion revolver-action firearms in general) were susceptible to chain fires in the field, when the spark from one igniting percussion cap would inadvertently ignite the gunpowder in other chambers. Some men tried to alleviate this risk by only loading a single chamber at a time, making the rifle a single-shot weapon and thus defeating the entire purpose of the design in the first place.

During the American Civil War, the US Army purchased several thousand Colt revolving rifles in various barrel lengths at a cost of about $44 each (equivalent to approximately $1,365 in 2023), and were primarily issued to cavalry and sharpshooters, although at least several hundred rifles ended up in the hands of infantry regiments as the war progressed. In one notable incident, Colonel Hiram Berdan's famed 1st and 2nd US Sharpshooters regiments were issued Colt 1855s in 1862- much to their contention as they had been promised the popular and highly regarded Sharps Carbine as their standard issue. Following the American Civil War, the Colt 1855 and other revolving rifles were quickly sidelined in favor of safer and more effective metallic cartridge lever-action rifles. Some rifles were sold internationally, and some of their last recorded combat usage was in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada in the 1870s.

Specifications

(1855 - 1864)

• Type: Rifle

• Caliber(s): .36, .44, .56

• Capacity: 6-round cylinder

• Fire Modes: Single-Action

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The Colt Model 1855 and variants can be seen in the following films, television series, video games, and anime used by the following actors:

Film

Title	Actor	Character	Notes	Date
El Dorado	Arthur Hunnicutt	Bull Harris	Carbine	1967
Barquero	Marie Gomez	Nola		1970
The Headless Horseman		Henchmen	carbine	1973
3:10 to Yuma	Rio Alexander	Campos	With scope	2007
Jonah Hex		A Confederate sniper	With scope	2010
Machete Kills			On gun wall	2013

Video Games

Title	Appears as	Mods	Notes	Date
Dead Man's Hand	Lewis Revolving Rifle	Incorrectly represented as a double-action gun	Revolving Carbine	2004
History Channel: Civil War – A Nation Divided				2006
History Channel: Civil War - Secret Missions				2008

See Also

• Colt's Manufacturing Company - A list of all firearms manufactured by Colt.