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Assuming there was some freelance mercenary/assassin/bounty hunter operating at that time, who had the option of choosing weapons from a number of nations what battle rifle do you think he'd have selected?
I believe the 3 main candidates would be:
The 1873 Springfield Trapdoor (United States)
The Martini-Henry (United Kingdom)
The Mauser Model 1871 aka Gewehr 71 (German Empire)
All these rifles were single-action shots. Meaning they could hold and fire only one metallic cartridge at a time.