The Secretary of State for War (War Department) commissioned Whitworth to find a successor to the Enfield 1853 carbine in caliber 14.66 mm, whose recent Crimean war had just shown the disadvantages. The Whitworth rifle had a lower bore (11 mm) and a hexagonal section; the bullets, elongated, had a superior spin rate (one full turn in twenty inches of guide) to the Enfield rifle, and the 1859 trials, reported by The Times newspaper on April 23, confirmed its superiority in every respect. However, the hexagonal geometry of the barrel proved vulnerable to fouling, and as its machining was four times more expensive than that of the Enfield rifle, the British government postponed its adoption, unlike the French Army. An unknown number of Whitworth rifles were delivered to the Confederates during the Civil War:the Americans called this weapon the Whitworth Sharpshooter.
In 1860, Queen Victoria inaugurated the first meeting of the National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom at Wimbledon by firing a Whitworth rifle mounted on a carriage:the bullet hit the center of the target at 366 m.
These rifles, of a high manufacturing cost, are of a remarkable precision at distances going up to 1000m, the ideal being 650-800m. They were used by snipers and made it possible to hit long-range targets such as overexposed soldiers. The weapon could be used with its original sight or equipped with a diopter that could improve aiming and therefore accuracy. A good shooter should be able to make 3 to 5 shots per minute, depending on the shooting position used. The travel time of a projectile between the shooter and the point of impact located 600m away is 2 seconds.