A .45 caliber Enfield? Well, maybe...we all know that Enfield never made one, but did the Confederacy make a few on their own as a sharpshooter's rifle?

I've seen several references to "cal. .45 Enfields" most notably in Jac Weller's 1954 and 1971 articles in American Rifleman. The usual explanation is that the rifle in question is really a Kerr or a Turner, but it always seemed unlikely to me that Weller, who was quite familiar with CW arms, would make this rather obvious mistake.

In his book on Confederate Whitworth Sharpshooters John Morrow quotes the former commander of Cleburne's sharpshooters, Capt. Buck Schell, as saying that his "Kerrs" were manufactured at the Macon, GA arsenal. Morrow is rather skeptical, and of course no records remain.

Still, there is one possibility -- that the "Kerrs" or some of them, were rebarreled Enfield P53s or 58s. Mr. Bill Curtis informs me that a Kerr barrel will fit nicely on a Enfield, and of course the arsenal could have made up their own .45 cal. barrels, which would not have been exactly rocket science.

If you did this you'd end up with a rifle that could use the round cast Whitworth .45 cal. bullets and would be roughly equivalent to the Kerr in performance. And it would say "Enfield" on it. Weller's .45 Enfield did quite well, even up against the Whitworths. He describes it as having a "conventional, 5-groove" barrel and firing a 520 grain bullet.

Anyone have comments or opinions on this? Ever seen one of these critters?