POTD: The Colt Model 1855 Sporting Rifle – Mind Your Left Hand

Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have Colt’s first long gun and one of the more alarming ideas Hartford ever put into production. The Colt Model 1855 sporting rifle is a scaled up Root revolver. Side hammer, solid frame with a top strap, creeping loading lever and an oiler set into the left side of the frame. Around a thousand First Model rifles and carbines were built between 1856 and 1859, and they were the first long arms Colt made in Hartford, which counts for something on its own.

The Root frame was stronger than the open top revolvers Colt was famous for, so strength was never the issue. The issue is where your left hand ends up. On a revolver your support hand sits behind the cylinder. On a rifle it sits out ahead of it, right beside the cylinder gap, and a chain fire in a revolving rifle can cost you fingers. Throw in cap fragments and gas spitting back toward your face and you can see why Berdan’s Sharpshooters took the military version in 1861 and handed it back the moment they could get Sharps rifles instead.

I would still love to shoot one, but I would want a long hard look at those chamber mouths first. Colt moved plenty of these to civilians who liked the novelty of six shots from a shoulder gun, and by the 1860s even Colt could see the design was a dead end.

Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!

“Rare Cased Presentation Colt 1855 First Model Sporting Rifle.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4097/1163/rare-cased-presentation-colt-1855-first-model-sporting-rifle. Accessed 4 Sept. 2026.

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