The Sisterdale revolver is one of the most original designs of the Confederate revolvers. It was devised by a group of Texans led by one Alfred Kapp, son of a German immigrant in Sisterdale, Texas. He and his compatriots made six of these revolvers on the Kapp homestead with the intention of obta...

T.W. Cofer was a Virginian gunsmith who made revolvers for the Confederate cause during the Civil War - although he never had a formal contract with the CSA. His pistols were sold privately to individual soldiers, and in at least one case bought in bulk by a unit commander.

One thing that make...

The Tucker & Sherrard (and later Sherrard & Clark) is one of the more interesting Texas Confederate revolvers. The company initially was granted a contract with the Texas state government to provide 100 revolvers per month at $50 each, and took a total of $10,000 of investment capital from the st...

The Spiller & Burr was a copy of the 1854 Whitney revolver, made in .36 caliber under contract to the CSA. As with so many Confederate arms projects, many thousands were promised and only a small fraction actually delivered. The Whitney in particular suffered from a lack of suitable materials, wi...

The LeMat grapeshot revolver is one of the most distinctive and powerful sidearms of the US Civil War, sporting both a 9-round .42 caliber cylinder of pistol bullets and a shotgun barrel as cylinder axis. Alexander LeMat received a contract for 15,000 of these guns for the Confederate military, b...

Cook and Brother was one of the largest and most successful of the private ordnance factories in the South during the Civil War. It was formed by two British brothers who had moved to New Orleans, Frederick and Francis Cook. They opened a rifle factory at the intersection of Common and Canal stre...

This capping breechloader was patented in the UK by William Terry in 1856, and adopted (in limited numbers) by the British military in 1860. Approved for cavalry use, it was issued to the 18th Hussars, and also bought by a variety of colonial organizations in New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewh...

In 1863, the Bilharz, Hall, & Co firm of Pittsylvania Court House, Virginia (now Chatham VA) received a contract to make 1,000 examples of a simple percussion cavalry carbine modeled after the US Model 1855 carbine. They would work until the end of 1864, but only make a total of 750-800 of them. ...

One of the rarest models of LeMat grapeshot revolver is this, the “Baby” LeMat. This is a substantially smaller gun than the normal LeMat, although it retains a 9-shot cylinder and a central barrel. In the Baby, however, the cylinder is in .32 caliber (rather than the standard .42) and the centra...

The Confederate States of America didn't have very much capacity for manufacturing small arms, and was happy to purchase guns from anyone who could make them. Among others who got into the gun-making business during the Civil War were the Dance brothers of Texas. They only managed to produce betw...

There was not much industrial production the the Confederate States of America during the US Civil War, and Confederate-made revolvers have been very collectible for a very long time. Today we're taking a look at three such revolvers made by a series of companies that evolved throughout the war. ...

Laban E. Tucker and his sons Elihu and Argyle were several of the original partners in the Tucker & Sherrard Company, which contracted with the State of Texas to produce Colt-pattern revolvers during the Civil War. The company went through several different names, driven in part by the departure ...

In 1863, the Confederate military decided to design a new standard pattern of cavalry carbine. The designs was put together rather quickly at the Richmond Arsenal; a 25 inch barrel, brass furniture, and Enfield type lock. Before production could begin, however, Richmond was deemed too risky of a ...

Most people think about the Remington Rolling Block as a purpose-built rifle, but it was also used as a way to transform muzzleloaders into more modern breechloaders. Remington did this commercially, and small gunsmiths did it as well. Essentially any old rifle could contribute a barrel, stock, a...

Griswold and Gunnison were rather unique among Confederate revolver manufacturers for their ability to actually create a reliable and high quality product and produce it on a regular and predictable schedule. So many of the Confederate revolvers were made by starry-eyed novices, but Griswold & Gu...

Little is known about the Keen-Walker Gun Company, except for a few Confederate arsenal records that have survived. From those we know that the company delivered a total of 282 of these single-shot .54 caliber carbines to the Danville Arsenal in 1862, receiving $50 each for the first 101 and $40 ...

James Kerr formed the London Armoury Company in 1856, manufacturing Adams patent revolvers (Adams was one of the founding investors) and 1853 pattern Enfield rifles. The rifles were the better business and the company rather quickly decided to focus on them, which led Adams to leave with his pate...

George Morse of Baton Rouge patented a design for a remarkably modern centerfire cartridge and breechloading rifle action in 1856 and 1858, using a standard percussion cap as a primer. This was coupled with a gutta percha washer for sealing and a rolled brass cartridge body that was strong and ro...

NOTE: Please see this video for a correction regarding Whitworth accuracy:
Sir Joseph Whitworth is quite the famous name in engineering circles, credited with the development of such things as Whitworth threading (the first standardized thread pattern) and engineer’s blue. When he decided to ...

During the Civil War, the Confederacy was perpetually in serious need of armaments, as the South did not have the amount of industrial infrastructure that the North did. This led to many attempts at arms production by various entrepreneurs, of quite varied result. One of the more successful enter...

Carbines made by the Columbus Armory are particularly scarce, and their history is not really well understood. They were manufactured by John Gray of Columbus SC, whose brother William Gray was a partner in another (better documented) Georgia arms factory under the director of J.P. Murray. John G...