peashooter85:The Tarpley Carbine,Produced during the American Civil War, the Tarpley Carbine was one
peashooter85:The Tarpley Carbine,Produced during the American Civil War, the Tarpley Carbine was one of the few firearms produced by the Confederacy. Invented Jarre H. Tarpley of Greensboro, North Carolina, the Tarpley carbine was a breechloader. To load, the user simply lifted up on the breechblock, inserted a paper cartridge, closed the breechblock, placed a percussion cap on the nipple, aimed, and fired. It fired a .52 caliber bullet.The Tarpley Carbine may seem like a great advantage for the average soldier being a breechloader. Most military firearms of the day were muzzleloading muskets. However, the Tarpley carbine came with all the problems inherent with Confederate manufacturing; poor workmanship, shoddy machining, use of inferior metals, and various design or manufacturing flaws. The worst flaw of the Tarpley was that the breechblock did not form a gas seal with the chamber. When fired, hot gasses would blow in the user’s face and corrosive residue would get all over the firing mechanism. This was a problem common with paper cartridge breechloaders of the time but was especially bad with the Tarpley. Worse yet, the pressure caused by each shot would expand the gap between the chamber and breechblock, eventually making it so that the carbine was dangerous to fire. Finally, the south’s lack of industrialization further doomed the Tarpley to poor production numbers. Only 421 were manufactured during the war. Most were delivered to the State of North Carolina, of those delivered ¼th would be rejected due to poor quality or manufacturing flaws. -- source link