Antique Firearms
The Old Lighthouse Museum has a handful of antique firearms in its collection worth mentioning. Here, you can find information about the firearms and how they were used in the past.
1851 Colt Navy Revolver
The 1851 Colt Navy Revolver is a very similar revolver to the Army revolvers with some slight but significant differences. The most visible difference is the shape of the barrels. The Navy revolver has an octagonal barrel as opposed to a rounded barrel. It is also chambered in .36 caliber lead balls as opposed to the larger .40 or .44 caliber, which helped to reduce the weight of the revolver and increase the speed of reloads. The Colt Navy Revolver, despite its name, was mostly purchased and used by civilians and land forces in the military. During its time of production from 1851-1873, it was the second most popular and most produced handguns with approximately 270,000 having been produced. Although this firearm had gone out of production, it was still seen in military use as late as 1877-78 during the Russo-Turkish war by the Ottoman Empire.
1860 Colt Army (Single Action)
The 1860 Colt Single Action shares its name with the more popular firearm from 1873 nicknamed “The Peacemaker”. The 1860 model of the Single Action Army utilizes black powder and .44 caliber balls, all of which had to be loaded separately until paper cartridges were developed and they were able to be loaded all together. Despite this, both types required utilizing the loading lever to put it in the chamber securely. The firearm did require a percussion cap to be placed on each chamber on the cylinder. This functionally acts as the firing pin, since the cap itself ignites the black powder and fires the round in the chamber. The 1860 Army had initially cost $20 in 1860, but after much backlash, Colt had lowered the price to $14.50. This model was produced from 1860-1873, eventually being replaced by “The Peacemaker” or the Richards Conversion.
1860 Colt Army (Richards Conversion)
The Richards Conversion was performed on the 1860 Single Action Army. It had made significant changes to the revolver, such as making it a breech loader. This cut out the purpose of the loading lever and replaced it with an ejection rod. The addition of the ejection rod was due to the revolver being chambered in .44 caliber with a brass shell. It had also added a firing pin that the hammer would strike, eliminating the need for percussion caps. This was produced for only a short period of time in the 1870s, approximately from 1873-1878. This specific firearm was present on many expeditions in the West involving General Custer, including the Battle of Little Bighorn where Native Americans had surrounded General Custer and his cavalry and killed them all, giving the battle the name of “Custer’s Last Stand”.
Springfield Rifle
This is an 1864 Springfield Percussion Lock Rifle. Similar rifles were produced between 1861-1865 throughout the course of the American Civil War. Approximately over a million of these rifles were produced and used by both the Union and Confederacy. This specific rifle is chambered in .58 caliber Minié balls and would have cost around $20 to purchase at the time (that would be $1,714 in 2023). Rifles around this time period were known to take a good couple of minutes between reloads, but experienced soldiers were able to shoot 3 rounds in a minute that would go about 500 yards each.