C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc.

Transcription

1 Edition Published by C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc. Manufacturers of A WORLD FAMOUS SERIES of Classic Metallic Cartridge Rifles and Classic Sights P.O. Box 885, Big Timber, MT Pnone: Fax: csharps@ttc-cmc.net *

2 THE AMERICAN SHARPS SHOOTERS Publisher: C. Sharps Arms Co. Inc., John R. Schoffstall President Mike Nesbitt Editor (miken54@aol.com) Dakota Dick Savage - - Field Contributor (honodick@mt-rushmore.net) On the cover: Dakota Dick Savage shakes hands with John Schoffstall to close the deal on James Henry, Dick s first Model 1874 Sharps from C. Sharps Arms. Table of contents: What s In A Name by Dakota Dick Savage page 3 Outstanding Products 5 My Hunting with the by Mike Nesbitt 9

3 What s In A Name? By Dakota Dick Savage Maybe it was all the TV Frontier and Mountain Man shows like Daniel Boone and such that can be held accountable for the influence that started me naming my Black Powder Cartridge Rifles. I find it kind of interesting that the naming of personal arms tended to drop off as Westerns like The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Cheyenne, Sugar Foot, The Rifleman, and Roy Rogers came along. They had unnamed Colts or Winchester 73s (mostly 92s) but interestingly enough they named about everything else including their horses like Trigger, sidekicks like Gabby and Jingles, and even their jeeps remember Ol Nellie Bell? When I picked up my first Sharps 74 the very first thing I thought to ask the owner was what did you name it? and he replied Emma of course, after my pioneer Great Grandmother and then he told me the story, as it was recounted to him, of a strong minded woman of great conviction and direction who moved out west to Montana from Kansas in the 1890s. And so it was for me when I took possession of my very own first Sharps 74 rifle. A solid 14 lb rifle with a 1 ½ Heavy 34 barrel, chambered for the long , that just spoke of a strong backbone and no nonsense conviction. Even after pondering wife called it day dreaming for several months prior to delivery, when John Schoffstall put the 74 in my hands, without a Dick takes aim with James Henry right in the shop. hint of hesitation, I knew this rifle was the James Henry after my father. Dad was a 30-year career military man who was stubborn, all business and could put the fear of God in you with just a look just ask any of the young airmen who learned aircraft maintenance under his watchful eye. Through several wars and conflicts he saw more than his share of good times and bad but never lost faith in his Nation, or God even when, at times, it appeared they had lost faith in him. Since that first naming, quite fortunately for me, I have had several opportunities to name some fine rifles. Big Dog for my followed only after acquiring my Little Dog of course, the rifle that downed Big Shaggy and was featured in the last issue of The American Sharps Shooter. Ol Buffalo Gal is my latest acquisition. That s a 16 pound rifle with a robust 12 pound #3 Heavy 30 barrel that tames the roaring cartridge into a tack driver and she is named after a Soiled Dove or Purveyor of Pleasure whose stature and talents were known to and recounted by many in the Dakota Territory of the late 1800s. Naming my BPCR rifles has become as important to me as their acquisition. Sometimes the name comes at first sight and sometimes it takes a month or two but the right fit comes for me eventually. So here is hoping our paths will cross sometime in the future on a hunt, at the range, at a competitive or fun shoot, gun show or seminar and I will have the opportunity to personally introduce you to the James Henry, Ol Buffalo Gal or one of my other close friends.

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5 OUTSTANDING PRODUCTS: ACCURATE MOLDS #50-470T by Mike Nesbitt The bullets from this new mold were just briefly mentioned in my story about the Billy Dixon Rifle and now I want to talk more about them. While doing that I also want to talk more about Tom Ellis and his company, Accurate Molds. When I told you about Accurate Molds in TASS volume # I said I d be a repeat customer. That was very true and I went back to Tom for another bullet mold faster than I had expected. The result of my second order with Tom was a mold for bullet #50-470T. The bullets from this mold were really intended for use with the cartridge and the real idea was to get a paper patched bullet that was very close to the 473 grains of the old originals. As it turns out, these bullets weigh just over 480 grains when cast with soft lead. That pleases me and they do seem to shoot rather well, even in the 1 turn in 26 rate of twist that the newer rifles have. Even though use in the was my main concern, more than a few of these new bullets have been fired in my and I think it is doing just fine in the shorter cartridge. In fact, I m just itching to do more shooting with the with loads using some new powders. Those powders include KIK 1.5Fg (new to me) and some of the Olde Enysford from GOEX. I m certainly hoping that excellent reports shall follow. For now I ve been shooting the with 90 grains of GOEX FFg, as reported in the previous issue of TASS. Loads in the have varied from 65.0 grains of Cowboy (I still have some left) and some Swiss FFg. While the Swiss powder is not my favorite, due to fouling just ahead of the chamber, it is performing very well, especially when used with a duplex load that is started with 5.0 grains of #4227. The duplex load was being used when the 5-shot group you see was fired at 50 yards with this bullet. That isn t the tightest group but getting three bullets touching in the X ring isn t all bad! Like the earlier.45 caliber mold, this new.50 mold makes tapered bullets. The rate of taper, however, is much less than what it is with #45-400T. This.50 caliber bullet tapers only from.493 at the forward full diameter to.498 at the base. So, the rate of taper is only.005 or.0025 on each side. That is enough so the forward part of the bullet can enter the rifling ahead of the chamber with ease when it is patched with two wraps of 9-pound paper. No throating ahead of the chamber should be necessary. While no hunting has been done with these.50 caliber paper patched bullets, I was able to ambush a sleeping piece of firewood that had a rather soft center. This was done for a number of little reasons, all rather minor. The first reason was to see if I could hit it centered enough that the bullet would stay in the wood

6 without going out of the side of the small log. Second was to see if I could find the bullet inside the wood, a seemingly simple task but I have had failures in that regard before. And, third, I wanted to be able to see the rifling marks on this generally considered under-size diameter bullet. Finally, fourth, I was hoping to see some expansion of the bullet mainly because I do have ideas about using this bullet in either the or the for big game hunting at some time. All of those wishes were fulfilled with the first shot while using a 65 grain load in the The piece of firewood was quickly split and the bullet you see pictured here simply fell to the ground. It had penetrated nearly 10 in the soft mushy piece of alder which was almost too old and too wet to burn. The two attractive things to notice are the expansion, of course, and the very clear and well defined rifling marks. Of course, when a big game hunt is made with one of the.50 caliber rifles, I can only hope that the bullet or bullets used to drop some game can be found. If they are found, they might look this good but maybe not. Or they could look even better. Certainly, there are no two fired bullets that are exactly alike. Let me try to say more about the mold than the bullets. Using the aluminum molds from Accurate Molds has truly been a pleasure. My method of pouring bullets is to use a pot and dipper rather than a bottom pour pot. The molds handle very well and the freshly cast bullet drop out with ease. The craftsmanship that goes into the making of these molds is top dollar and, because I ve said it in that sense, I think Tom s prices for his products are very reasonable. As with my.45 caliber T bullet, aluminum was selected for the blocks with this.50 caliber mold. Tom offers his molds in three different metals; they can be made with blocks of aluminum, brass, or iron. The mold blocks come without handles but they are made to fit RCBS single or double cavity mold handles, or Lee handles for larger blocks. And larger block sizes can be ordered for molds up to 5 cavities. Accurate Molds offers CNC lathe bored bullet molds. Choose from the catalog of existing designs, or submit a custom A patched #50-470T with a on the left and a on the right design of your own. Prices for a single cavity mold, such as the one I bought, range from $79 for aluminum, $97 for brass, and $143 for iron. Those prices recently had to make a small jump and currently orders are being filled in just four weeks and that includes for custom orders per your own design. The molds I have are probably not completely broken in just yet but I will not hesitate to give Accurate Molds my highest recommendations. For more info or to place an order, take a computer trip to his website at tom@accuratemolds.com. You can also write to him by sending a note to Tom Ellis, Accurate Molds, P.O. Box 315, Salt Lake City, Utah He does not give his telephone number but he does promise to reply to all s within 48 hours. Once again, you can bet I ll be a repeat customer.

7 KIK BLACK POWDER by Mike Nesbitt Both Dakota Dick Savage and Dangerous Don McDowell have urged me to try some KIK 1.5 Fg powder and now I have some with a few loads already made up with it. Let me quickly admit that I have fired only a few rounds with KIK but so far everything looks real good. This seems to be a powder that has a burning rate which is just about right for shooting with the larger black powder cartridges. Soon I will also try the KIK powder in some of my larger bored muzzle-loading rifles to see how it performs under a patched round ball. While I already have a good expectancy about its performance in muzzleloaders, I might not offer a follow-up report unless it is requested. And for a hint about a range report on using KIK 1.5 Fg in big cartridges, Dakota Dick Savage says his favorite load in the uses grains of KIK 1.5 Fg under a paper patched bullet. He ll have a lot more to say about such doin s when he tells us how Ol Buffalo Gal is shooting. Dick gives good and complete information about the loads he uses and his is a very good act to follow. Rather than continue about the performance of this powder right now, let me tell you where to get it. KIK is made in Europe and it is distributed by Western Powders Inc. out of Miles City, Montana. Individual orders can be placed to Powder, Inc., 1861 North College Ave, Clarksville, AR Phone: (479) , or jerry@powderinc.com. For a good look at all of the offerings from Powder, Inc. look on their website at Currently the price for KIK powders, in granulations from Fg to FFFFg, is $13.70 per pound when purchasing 25 pounds or more. C. SHARPS ARMS BPC LUBE by Mike Nesbitt This is a fine lubricant that I began using several years ago, especially for the under-bullet grease cookie used with paper patch loads. My most often way of using it is to melt half a stick in a metal plate, and after the lube is hardened again just push the case, loaded with powder and over-powder card, into the grease and cake cut a full cookie of lube right where it needs to go. I also use it with greasers such as in the carbine loads which perform so well. Just like it says on the label, BPC reduces hard black powder fouling and promotes accuracy. BPC Lube is available in 1.5 ounce hollow sticks for use in sizer/lubricators at $4 per stick or in package of 5 sticks for $17. A two-stick package is also available for $7. Postage will need to be added to those prices and if you d like to try some just check in with C. Sharps Arms by going to or call and let them know how much you want. We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: The soap box, The ballot box, The jury box; And the cartridge box. -- Sen. Larry McDonald

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9 MY HUNTING WITH THE SHARPS By Mike Nesbitt Rather than try to fill you with my historical guesswork about the Sharps loadings, let me tell you just about some of the hunting I ve done with a rifle in this chambering. Yes, that Model 1874 Sharps from C. Sharps Arms is simply chambered for the standard and the was just one of Sharps loadings for that cartridge. However, it is my personal opinion that one of the best black powder loadings we can use in the cartridge is the Sharps with a 400 to 420 grain paper patched bullet. Bear with me just a little bit and I ll try to show you why I feel so good about the loads. The first head of game that dropped to one of my loads was a respectable coastal blacktail forkhorn buck, taken near Roseburg, Oregon. That was in the fall of 1981 while I was hunting with Dale Nelson. The buck was taken through the heart at about 70 yards and it made just one jump after being hit. In fact, the heart was blown to bits. The rifle was my first.45 caliber Sharps, a custom built job by C. Sharps Arms back in the days when they used Shiloh actions. In fact, this rifle is one of the rather early cartridge firing guns from Shiloh/C. Sharps and that is noted by the fact that the lock still uses a tumbler from a percussion rifle. That makes the hammer rest on halfcock at a very high position. It s as fine rifle and, as you might guess, I still have and use it. This gun sports a 30 half-round barrel. In those days it was more or less customary to have the rifles chambers throated for use with paper patch bullets. That allows the use of full diameter bullet rather than using tapered paper patch bullets which don t require a throated chamber. And the bullet used was one from NEI Handtools, the bullet they identify as pp, #278. That 410 grain bullet was loaded over my common load at that time, using 70 grains of FFg powder on top of 5 grains of smokeless powder, a duplex load. The smokeless powder I preferred was slower burning when compared to the duplex loads used by several others. I liked #4198 because it would keep burning all the way to the muzzle and using the duplex loads did assure cleaner burning of the powders. Paul Matthews, in his book The Paper Jacket, mentions me and my use of that bullet plus others like it of the same style. What Paul probably didn t know was that I designed those bullets. My idea for them was to have the bullet s ogive curve back from the point to a full groove diameter, to protect the leading edge of the paper patch in rifles that have a rather abrupt leade to the rifling. From there the diameter steps down where the bullet will be given its paper wrapping, and it has a short tapered heel to make twisting the wrapping paper just a bit easier at the base of the bullet. A sketch showing and describing those details was sent to the late Walt Mellander at NEI, out of El Paso at that time, and he added the small grooves around the bullet s shank as patch holding grooves. (I never thought those small grooves did anything but at the same time, they shouldn t hurt. Walt told me those little grooves did help in stabilizing the cherry while cutting the mould blocks.) And the very first bullet of that design was for the.50 caliber, pp, #364. Walt handed me the first mould for it when we met at Paper patched loads in using the NEI bullets

10 an NRA show in 1980 I believe. This bullet design was then made in.45 caliber for at least three different weights, two more weights in.40 caliber and one more for the.44 caliber rifles. Matthews points out that he doesn t like this style of bullet and suggests that it will cause leading in the bore. With some of the loads he uses behind his paper patched bullets, including high velocity loads with smokeless powders, such leading might easily occur. My own use with this style of bullet has never included anything except black powder and/or duplex loads and I have not had any problems with leading in the barrel. One more point, before I begin to sound defensive, is that the bearing surface of the groove diameter portion of the NEI bullets is really not any longer than the leading band on a grooved or naked bullet. Given proper lubrication beneath the base of the bullet, leading should not be a problem at all with black powder loads. Let me fall back and make one more comment about that rifle from C. Sharps Arms. They knew I needed the gun for a deer hunt but their schedule had hit some bumps, slowing down the completion of the gun. So it was sent to me with a temporary forearm, a forearm that did not have the pewter nose cap. That was very fine, the rifle performed and hunted just right. And that is why my hand covered the front of the forearm in the picture you see of me with that forkhorn buck, hiding the schnabel on the temporary forearm. After the hunt, the rifle was returned to C. Sharps so it could be fitted with the Hartford forearm that I really wanted. I thought they were very considerate and their actions made a very fine service. Now, let me get back to bagging that deer. The rifle, for that first hunt, was equipped with the standard sights on the barrel, the open rear sight with a silver blade at the front. I found that the most accurate shooting was done with the rear sight s ladder raised but with the sliding sighting notch all the way down. While hunting on foot, I carried the rifle with the sight folded down but really hoped I wouldn t have to do any fast shooting. Dale Nelson told me of a good plan, he d walk around the bottom of a ridge while I slowly crossed the top. That worked just great and while coming down the far side I sat for a couple of minutes. While I was sitting there this handsome buck came up and stood near a log, watching something below him. That was the Back at the barn with the buck and the Sharps perfect shot I wanted, so the rear sight was raised and the slide was checked for position. Aiming from the sitting position, the set trigger was squeezed and the rifle roared. The hit was obvious! The buck seemed to stagger just a bit; then he jumped over the log that was in front of him and disappeared. I waited just a couple of minutes after sliding a fresh round into the Sharps chamber, then slowly started moving forward. When I had gotten about halfway to where I last saw the deer, Dale s head pops up out of the brush. He asked me what I was looking for. I told him that he should be just about standing on it. With that, Dale looked down at his feet and there was the deer. That jump I d seen it take was his last.

11 The bullet, of course, was never recovered. At the same time, it was sure plain to see where it had been. Like I said a bit ago, the heart was blown to bits. The bullet must have hit one of the heart s chambers just after it had filled with blood. I ve never seen another shot with any kind of rifle that destroyed an animal s heart so completely. In my opinion, my first shot at game with that new Sharps rifle couldn t have been better. Two years later I was using the same rifle and load in Colorado on a mule deer hunt. I was enjoying a lazy morning in camp and didn t head into the woods until after 9:00 that morning. For this hunt I had traveled light, taking only 10 rounds of the.45/75/410 loads with me. That morning I walked out of camp with four of those loads in my coat pocket plus one more in the rifle s chamber. By then my rifle was wearing new sights, a sporting tang sight at the back and a globe sight at the front. My wandering route took me to the lower end of a logging setting where the trees had been felled but not yarded out. When I looked up towards the top of that setting, there was a fine looking mule deer buck just looking back at me. The distance was easily double that of my other buck taken with the.45-75, at least 140 yards, and for this shot I had to shoot offhand. If I sat or kneeled I couldn t see over the logs well enough to see the deer. Even so, a better shot than this would be hard to find so I held as steadily as I could, putting the front sight high on his chest but not over (if you hold over, you ll most often shoot over), and squeezed the trigger. That fine rifle roared again and this time I got a real good view of the deer taking the hit. When the bullet slammed into the buck, the deer showed shock at absorbing the hit and then collapsed, falling toward me. The deer actually rolled once or twice, in my direction on the steep hillside but I couldn t see that because of the logs in the way between us. I knew a good hit was made but I could only hope it was good enough to keep the deer anchored. Next came the climb up to the buck and that was not the easiest thing to do. If I walked around the setting I d lose sight of where the deer was and if that deer somehow got up again, I wanted to see it. So, I climbed over several logs while getting up to the deer and that short trip probably took me more than 20 minutes to accomplish. And at my approach, it was plain to see that the deer was still alive. When the deer saw me, it made several efforts to rise and move but all it could do was to thrash its head and neck. Of course, I didn t know if the deer would rise at any second or not so my immediate intentions were to fire a finishing shot. Standing rather close to the frantic animal, I fired a shot at its neck. That was a miss! The deer was thrashing its head enough that a good hold in its neck was very hard do to. There was nothing else to do but try again, and that was also a miss! Then I knew I had to get serious because I was running out of cartridges and there was no help close at hand. What I did then was to back off, to put just a little distance between me and the deer, about 25 yards, and shoot again. The deer quit thrashing its head long enough for me to place a bullet though its spine in the neck and then the buck was all mine. That was a nice big deer. I got to appreciate how big it was several times when I began to drag it down the hill, along side of that setting, to a small cat road where I left it while I got some help from the camp. Getting help also meant getting someone who could take my picture with this deer. Just a bit later, when the deer was skinned, it was easy to see where the bullet had hit on the buck s left side and had gone in over the heart and just nicked the lower edge of the spine. That spine damage or shock is what paralyzed the buck and allowed me to get close enough for my other shots. Again, the bullet was not recovered but it obviously had done its job. The wound channel did show evidence of the bullet s expansion but not a tremendous amount. No complaints, it was just right. Mike with the Colorado buck.

12 Remember how I said if you hold over, you ll shoot over? That was too true for me in 1996 while on a bear hunt in northern British Columbia. Les Miller was my partner on that trip and both of us wanted to fill our tags with black powder cartridge rifles. He, just the day before, had bagged a pretty nice black bear with his C. Sharps High Wall in.45-70, using the 330 grain Gould hollow-points over 70 grains of Cartridge powder. Now it was my turn and my first good chance was a shot at Mr. Lucky from over 200 yards. A couple of days earlier, before Les had gotten his bear, we saw this very big black bear just walking along, less than 100 yards away. Les was to get the first bear of our trip, so we watched as this big bear walked behind a stump. That s when Les took a sitting position and got prepared to nail it when it came back into our view, coming out from behind that stump. We waited and waited but the bear never appeared. What it did was to use the stump as a shield, to block our view, and then turn so it went straight away from us. That s when we named it Mr. Lucky. The loads I was using in my Sharps had changed just a little, they used paper patched bullets cast from Rapine s # mould which were loaded over 75 grains of GOEX Cartridge grade powder. Those 420 grain bullets from the Rapine mould (now out of business) are good ones but being nearly at bore diameter before patching, they also needed to be fired in throated chambers or be seated in the cartridge cases very deeply. In my rifle those bullets are quite accurate and they always performed very well. And then Mr. Lucky was seen again, over 200 yards away without a single twig in between us for cover. This was too good of a chance to pass up so I stepped just a bit closer and took a sitting position. My rifle was sighted-in for 100 yards so I held the globe front sight just over the bear s back and fired. That shot was a total miss, the bullet must have gone right where I had held, high over its back. Yes, Mr. Lucky was still pretty lucky and he really spun his wheels while getting out of there..45/75/420 bullets and load Even though there was no sign of a hit, I had to go and look for sign. Les was right behind me as I followed the tracks. Quietly Les whispered, Mike, look so I turned around to look. Les pointed forward of us with big round eyes saying, No, the bear! Mr. Lucky was coming right back at us. The bear wasn t charging. The wind was in our favor and Mr. Lucky might have been curious about what we were looking at. That gave me a very close shot, into the chest at about 30 yards. The bear took that hit and began to climb a big cedar tree. As it went up I shot again, once more into the chest. A bit later we saw the bear s hind legs relax, then the front legs lost their grip and down Mr. Lucky came. This was a 400+ pound bear and while I can t brag about missing that first shot, I remain very pleased with the performance of those.45/75 loads. The two chest shots hit within two inches of each other although the wound channels were not parallel. Those are my three big game taken with the.45/75 Sharps. There were other hunts but there were other rifles too. Now it s time for more and that.45/75 Sharps is ready to go.

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