Can anyone identify this rifle?

[robh]

Anyone recognise the rifle held by this Ashanti warrior?  When was it in service?

[The Gray Ghost]

spencer carbine?

[robh]

Thanks for the suggestion, don't think it is the Spencer as it seems to lack the bulge under the breech where the lever pivots, but the overall shape and size is certainly right.  (rather unclear old photo unfortunately)



My most likely candidates are the Sharps or the Snider Carbines.

[sukhe_bator]

More likely to be a Snider-Enfeild which would be standard issue to British Colonial troops by the 3rd or 4th Ashante wars. British Colonial troops continued to use it up till the end of the C19

[Valerik]

More likely to be a Snider-Enfield which would be standard issue to British Colonial troops

Agreed.  & appears to be of carbine length, so a brute to shoot!!

"Tis only a dah an' a Snider that makes a dacoit, Widout thim, he's a paceful cultivator,"
Rudyard Kipling "The Taking of Lungtungpen" Plain Tales from the Hills

Valerik
"Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
-Sun Tzu

[robh]

The Snider was my thought too, but am still uncertain due to the shape of the final few inches of the fore-end. The picture seems to suggest a long tapering single section towards the muzzle, where as the Snider has a distinctive 2 stage step section at this point.

Could be more about the shadows/angle of the picture but the similarity to the Sharps is pretty strong......
...but then, if it is a Sharps were they exported/available on the Gold Coast?

[carlos marighela]

Looks more like a Westley Richards carbine to me but impossible to tell. I should think that a wide variety of sporting guns would have been available including the W-R. Butt looks too straight to be a Sharp.