The Lamson & Ball Carbine is a late Civil War era, famously known for being featured in the Action Western love novel "West Is Where the Heart Is" by Louis L'Amour, where the main character is equipped with this carbine as his main weapon throughout the story.

The The Ball repeating carbine was designed by Albert Ball, an employee of E.G. Lamson & Company, in 1864, being designed for use by army scouts and other forces, and it was considered a fine weapon in that aspect. The first prototypes for the carbine were designed in 1864 and were sent for trials; these interested the US Army enough for them to order a batch of 1,002 rifles the same year for their use. However these were failed to be delivered on time, arriving to the hands of U.S Soldiers a mere 6 days after General Lee's surrender.
As such, since the weapons were no longer needed. A small number were sold to the civilian market after hostilities had ended.

The Ball Carbine represented a sort of “improved” Spencer carbine. The Ball design used a tubular magazine, as did the Spencer, but it was mounted under the barrel of the gun, instead of in the buttstock. The 7-round magazine was loaded through the action, which was opened by lowering the triggerguard. This allowed the insertion of 56-50 rimfire cartridges directly into the magazine tube under the barrel. The magazine was tensioned by a long spring, which had to be compressed and retained to allow loading. This was accomplished by pulling a long rod that resembled a cleaning rod, out from the forend of the carbine. When the rod was fully extended, the spring was compressed and was captured by a small catch at the end of the forend. Once the magazine was fully loaded, the catch was released and the spring tensioned the magazine to push the cartridges towards the action. Much like a Spencer, lowering the triggerguard opened the action, ejected a fire cartridge and allowed a fresh cartridge to be pushed onto the lifter. Closing the action chambered the round.



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