M1819 Hall rifle
First breech-loading rifle adopted in large numbers by any army.
The M1819 Hall rifle was a single-shot breech-loading rifle designed by John Hancock Hall and patented on May 21, 1811. Adopted by the U.S. Army in 1819, it was the first breech-loading rifle to be adopted in large numbers by any nation's army. It used a pivoting chamber breech design and was produced with either flintlock or percussion cap ignition systems.
Quick Facts
- Origin
- United States
- Designed
- 1811
- Produced
- 1820s–1840s
- Used by
- United States, Argentina
- Wars
- Indian Wars
- Mexican–American War
- American Civil War
- Argentine Civil Wars
- Caliber
- .525;.69
- Barrel length
- 32.7 in / 83.1 cm (rifle); 21–23 (carbine)
- Feed
- Breech-loaded
Facts from the source article.
Production history
The original flintlock model had a 32.5-inch barrel rifled with 16 right-hand grooves making one rotation in 96 inches. The muzzle was reamed 1.5 inches deep, giving the appearance of a smoothbore when viewed from the front. Overall length was 52.5 inches and weight without bayonet was 10.25 pounds. It fired a .525-inch ball weighing 220 grains with a 100-grain black powder charge and 10 grains of fine powder primer for flintlock versions. A carbine design began production in 1833 with a 23-inch smoothbore barrel, overall length of 43 inches, and weight of 8 pounds; it was the first caplock firearm adopted by the U.S. Army. Barrel length was reduced to 21 inches in 1840, and a fishtail breech lever credited to Captain James Huger was introduced for the next 7,000 carbines, including the M1842 carbine. The Hall-North carbine of 1843 featured a side-mounted breech lever by Henry North and Edward Savage; 11,000 were made with a 21-inch .52-caliber barrel. The Harper's Ferry production line closed in 1844, but Simeon North manufactured 3,000 M1843 carbines between 1843 and 1846.
Action
The rear several inches of the barrel, forming the chamber, is a separate piece that pivots upward from the front for reloading, conceptually similar to the later Swedish-Norwegian kammerlader. The weapon was still loaded front to back, but without needing to ram the charge all the way from the muzzle; it resembled loading the cylinder of an early cap-and-ball revolver. One could also compare it to loading a short-barreled single-shot muzzle-loading horse pistol, which then hinges down behind an extra length of barrel, avoiding the need to extract a long ramrod, rotate it, ram the charge, extract the rod, flip it again, and return it to its rings. With the short chamber, powder and ball could be loaded quickly by hand. As with all breechloaders, the fact that the charge did not have to be loaded through the entire barrel allowed the use of rifling in a standard-issue front-line military weapon, rather than only in small numbers for elite troops. For rifling to work, the projectile must fit very snugly in the barrel, which makes ramming it down the barrel harder and slower. Black powder fouling builds up quickly, making loading even more difficult; a typical muzzle-loading rifle could be fired only three or four times before cleaning was needed, or the bullet could not be forced down the barrel. This is why soldiers were still issued smoothbore muskets firing loose-fitting round balls long after rifling's merits were known: rifles could not be loaded fast enough for open-field combat, though they were more effective shot-for-shot. The loose fit of a musket ball allowed faster loading even after fouling, but made rifling useless. With a breech-loader, a tight-fitting projectile could be used without forcing it down the barrel, enabling both rifling and a fast rate of fire.
Similar guns
The Sartoris carbine, a limited-issue British army firearm from 1821 to 1825, borrowed its breech-loading mechanism from the earlier Crespi design. Its brass trigger guard doubled as a handle, pulling the barrel forward so the breech could tilt upward for loading, much like a muzzle-loading pistol. Sartoris tested this system on several flintlock weapons, including a Baker rifle and a standard cavalry carbine. Alexander Forsyth also converted at least one sporting gun to a caplock ignition. A surviving example of this rare carbine resides in the Royal Armouries collection in Leeds.
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