Full-stocked percussion cavalry carbine, East India Company, 1850 (c)

The carbine was a lighter, shortened, rifled weapon developed for the cavalry, for whom a full-length musket or rifle was too heavy and awkward to fire from horseback. This example has a Baker style grip, tail trigger guard and flat serpentine side-plate. It would have been used by Indian sowars (cavalry) of the Company's mounted units.