C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc.

Transcription

1 Edition Published by C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc. Shooting the.44/70 Page 3 Manufacturers of A WORLD FAMOUS SERIES of Classic Metallic Cartridge Rifles and Classic Sights P.O. Box 885, Big Timber, MT Phone: Fax: * info@csharpsarms.com 2017

2 THE AMERICAN SHARPS SHOOTERS Publisher: C. Sharps Arms Co. Inc., John R. Schoffstall President Mike Nesbitt Editor (miken54@aol.com) Allen Cunniff --- Field Contributor (tpigskin@comcast.net) Dangerous Don McDowell - - Field Contributor (ranch13@hotmail.com) Rick Hamilton Field Contributor (rhamilton@nntc.net) Table of contents: Page SHOOTING THE.44/70 by Mike Nesbitt OLD WEST CENTERFIRES by Bob Gietz Outstanding Products... Deer Hunting with the Venerable by Rick Hamilton.. 17 Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason, Mark Twain

3 SHOOTING THE.44/70 By Mike Nesbitt A very nice rifle from C. Sharps Arms became mine in a rather quick way, even though this rifle sat on the ready rack for about eight months before I had them put my name on it. This rifle is a rather standard Hartford Model and it has the added option of a #1 Heavy barrel, 32 inches long. The rifle is chambered for the.44/70 cartridge which we might call a black powder wildcat because cases are simply formed by necking down standard.45/70 brass to accept the.446 diameter bullets. That appealed to me because I expected it to offer me some good shooting with a somewhat lighter recoil than what the.44/77 and the bigger.44/90 deliver. When I said it came my way in a rather quick way, here s what I mean. I was watching that rifle as the months went by, making sure it hadn t sold. My intention was to visit the shop in Big Timber, look the rifle over, and buy it if I found it really to my liking. As the date for my trip to Big Timber approached, I mentioned to Pat Dulin how I wanted to look at the rifle and that I was rather serious about it. Really? was Pat s reply. He then told me how they had just taken the barrel off of that rifle with the intentions of re-barreling it to a caliber that might sell at Quigley. This particular rifle, remember, sat in the ready rack longer than the makers expected it to, un-loved and un-sold. Pat s news spurred me into action and I quickly told him to put the.44/70 barrel back on the rifle and to tag it with my name. The rifle was waiting for me when I got to Big Timber just two weeks later. As soon as I saw the rifle, I knew my purchase would please me. Very nice looking, as I hope the photos portray. And, along with the rifle, I was about to get some custom Redding reloading dies (marked for the.44/70 C.S.S. meaning.44/70 C. Sharps Straight) as well as new sights on each end of the gun. Before leaving the shop, I used their loading bench and hastily prepared 25 rounds of shiny new.44/70 ammo. Those loads used some 400 and 450 grain bullets (I had both weights with me) loaded over 60.0 grains of Olde Eynsford 2F. That gave me just a few rounds to have something to try in the new rifle on the firing line at Quigley, arriving there the next day. The brass that was selected for use with the.44/70 were nickel plated.45/70 cases from Star Line. That nickel plating should serve to tell me that the ammo is for the.44/70 because now I won t use the nickel plated cases for.45/70 loads. In fact, I sent a note to Star Line asking if they would run a batch of.45/70 cases with no headstamp, at least with no caliber designation. No reply, so far After moving to Quigleyville, another rifle had all of the priorities of my attention, my good old.44/90 which was the rifle I would compete with. That.44/90 needed to be sighted-in because a brand new rear sight had been added to the guns tang. This meant none of my notes from the year before could be used or relied upon. So, right after registering as a shooter, to the firing line we went. While I was getting some new sight settings with my.44/90, my Quigley partner, Allen Cunniff, was doing the same thing with either his.45/70 or his.45/90. At that time, he wasn t sure which of his rifles he wanted to use for score. And we spent most of that day on the firing line, making our notes as well as getting the feel of those sometimes unusual Quigley distances. Toward the end of the day but still a full hour ahead of the evening s cease fire! we went back to the firing line with the new.44/70 and the 25 rounds that were loaded just to give the gun a good try. My cross-

4 sticks were set at the shooting line for the diamond which is a rather small square shaped target turned 45- degrees which gives it the diamond shape. That target is 405 yards away from the firing line and I guessed at an elevation, set the sight for that, and then fired, only to see the bullet strike about 30 feet low. Alright, so I was off on my guess More elevation was cranked in and another shot was fired. That was closer Allen was with me and after some closer hits were noticed, he tried a couple of shots through the new rifle too. Our hits on the target were actually rather few but those shots were fired more to see what the rifle acted like instead of really trying for score. It was just a brand new rifle and our curiosities were basically satisfied after about 15 shots were fired. With that done, we headed back to the tent and the range closed horn sounded behind us. One point that apparent at that moment was the rather sharp crack from this new rifle. That has no bearing on this tale except that it did remind me of comments by John R. Cook in his book The Border and the Buffalo, when he said he could hear the booms of Trying the.44/70 at Quigley the.50s mixed with the sharper cracks of the.44s. More shooting was done with the.44/70 after getting back home, with a variety of bullets over a fairly wide span of powder charges. Bullets from 400 grains up to 515 grains were tried, mostly favoring the lighter slugs. Powder charges from 57 grains on up to 69 grains were also tried. The loading settled on for the most use, because of its rather good performance, uses 65 grains of Olde Eynsford 1 1/2F powder under a fairly light original Postell designed bullet from Steve Brooks which weighs right about 415 grains when cast with a 25-1 alloy. That load pleases me in a number of ways; in this 12 pound-plus rifle it has a rather soft recoil (which makes several shots per day nothing to shy away from) and it performs very well on paper. Doing well on paper targets is a prime concern to me with this rifle because, as others have suggested, it is probably time for me to settle on using one rifle for the Old West Centerfires matches which are reported on within these pages. There have been years where I haven t used the same rifle twice, or so it seems, and breaking in a new rifle each time doesn t develop a positive pattern. The selection of a rifle to use for the next year s Old West Centerfires matches actually fell to two rifles, this.44/70 and the rolling block.50/70 that was completed shortly after the Quigley doin s last June. The good.50/70 put up a real good fight but the standoff ended with the.44/70 more consistently turning in higher scores. Here s the.50/70 rolling block, doing very well with its Oregon Barrel Co., 1 in 32 twist barrel. We ll all get to see if that was a good choice or not in the report of the Old West Centerfires match yet to be held. That will be reported on in this edition. The only thing I ll say about it at this time is wish me luck. If all goes well, this rifle might be taken back to Quigley in addition to being used in the iron sight class for silhouettes. The rifle is doing well and I ll use it in any match it likes. But that s all in the future, near future at least. The 415 grain bullets will be used in the 100 and 200 yard matches for the Old West Centerfires and I m not opposed to using heavier bullets for longer range shots. In fact, at Quigley last June I bought a 515 grain bullet mold from Steve Brooks but I must admit, that bullet has not been completely put to the test as yet. In fact, I bought it more for the.44/90 so we ll see how things go. For now I m just practicing and so I ll report on that practice. Some of my shooting, while comparing loads for instance, is done from a bench rest. That s the best way to test the gun. But to test the shooter, using a

5 bench rest can make things look too good. So, in order to see how well I would do with this new rifle in a match where shooting is done from the sitting position with the rifle fired over cross-sticks, I do my practice while shooting in that position with cross-sticks. That does make a difference and I ve found that my rifles often need a slightly different elevation setting when used over cross-sticks than what they like while being fired from a bench. The reason for that must be in the fact that there is something different in the way the rifle is held, which allows it to recoil is a slightly different way, which means the barrel or the muzzle is at a slightly different attitude when the bullets exit, which results in a slightly different point of impact at the target. (Similarly, I ve found that my shots generally hit lower when I shoot offhand than when the same rifle is shot from a bench rest. That is most evident when trying to knock over chickens in the silhouette match. Perhaps I allow the muzzle to drop slightly before firing the shot. At any rate, hits on the rail seem to be common when I try for chickens.) In the Outstanding Products section of this edition there is a page devoted to my APOLOGIES TO MR. BROOKS for reasons which are explained there. What I want to point out now is that the caliber Dennis Mitchell and I were talking about when he advised me not to use the.456 diameter Walter s wads was the.44/70. He also has a.44/70 on a custom Highwall. I ll just say it again, the.446 diameter wads are made for the.44 Sharps and Remington rifle cartridges and when they are used, the difference really shows. Right now my load of choice includes the 415 grains bullets from the Brooks mold, with the bullets sized to.446 and lubed with either Big Sky Lube or BPC from C. Sharps Arms, loaded over 65 grains of Olde Eynsford 1 1/2F, with the powder compressed under a.060 Walter s wad (.446 of course), and primed with a Winchester large rifle primer. I did try loading some large pistol primers but in this rifle that resulted in pierced primers and that is simply not the best. That s the load I ll continue using until I stumble across something better, perhaps with heavier bullets. And so far all I ve really done with this still new.44/70 rifle is practice with it, so I ll simply report on my practice. As the shooting with this rifle goes on, it seems to be getting better and better. My routine for practice is mainly done at 100 yards, firing from the cross-sticks while going for group and score at the same time on our standard 100 yard bullseye target. My personal goal is to keep all ten shots within the 9 ring which will produce a score of 90 or better in the Old West Centerfires matches. That might not be the best score in the match but it will satisfy me. Two groups like that are shown here with the tighter group being the last one shot. We ll have to see if things continue to improve. At this time I ll just say, if you can t already tell, my shooting with this.44/70 pleases me quite well. I m so glad that no one else bought this rifle when it sat in the ready rack for those several months.

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7 Old West Centerfires By Bob Gietz Because The American Sharps Shooters now comes out just four times per year, this report will cover two matches. Our Old West Centerfire matches are held six times per year and so this time we ll report on our last match for 2017 and our first match for I must explain that our year ends in September and our new year begins in November. That is simply for aggregate scoring and it is possible for us to someday reschedule our shooting schedule So, last September was our final match for Nine shooters were physically present for that event. One of them was a new shooter, Lynn Willecke. Lynn had actually shot with us once before but that was so many years ago that we ll call him a new shooter again. And he joined us with a new rifle, a 16 pound 74 from C. Sharps Arms in.44/77 caliber. Match prizes were awarded with selection for a combination of club-provided meat prizes, and merchandise items from C. Sharps Arms. Some good black powder cartridge lube was also provided by SPG. You can see who placed where in the listing below which also points out what rifle and caliber they were using. After completion of the established course of fire, an optional relay was conducted for those interested in trying an offhand event. The target used was a 50-yard California X. Lynn Willecke aiming his 16 pound Sharps in.44/77 The six offhand participants fired 5 shots after contributing.25 cents and Bob DeLisle carried the pot away with a score of 41. It is notable that Bob was the only shooter to get all 5 hits in the target s scoring rings. During the after-shoot discussion it was decided that we can use a variety of targets for the future 5-shot offhand matches. It was also decided to allow use of any OWC rifle for the offhand, even allowing black powder lever actions as well. In addition to a single match $0.25 pot shoot, a separate aggregate can be compiled for an overall offhand aggregate. Scores for the last Match in 2017 Name Rifle/Cartridge 100 yd. 200 yd. Total 1 st Bob DeLisle 1874 Pedersoli Sharps,.45/ X 195-2X 2 nd Allen Cunniff 1875 C. Sharps Arms.45/ X 97-2X 191-6X 3rd Jeff Ritter Remington rolling block.45/90 92-X 95-X 187-3X 4 th Don Kerr 1874 C. Sharps Arms.45/ X 174-2X 5 th Mike Nesbitt 1874 C. Sharps Arms.40/ X 170-2X 6 th Lynn Willecke 1874 C. Sharps Arms.44/77 74-X X 7 th Jim Dickerman 1874 Shiloh Sharps,.45/70 77-X 82-2X 159-3X 8 th Phil Wiebe 1875 C. Sharps Arms X 152-2X 9 th Jerry Mayo 1874 C. Sharps Arms.45/ This match also concluded the year s aggregate scores, based on each shooters best five scores of the year. More fine prizes were awarded to those shooters present. They included: 1 st place Allen Cunniff X, 2 nd place Jeff Ritter X, 3 rd place Bob DeLisle 906-7X, 4 th place Mike Nesbitt X, 5 th place Don Kerr X, 6 th place Jim Dickerman 845-8X, 7 th place Jerry Mayo 781, 8 th place Phil Wiebe 621-5X, and 9 th place Lynn Willecke 161-X.

8 Nine shooters enjoyed the good weather for the match held in September Our next match marked the beginning of our next year, for the aggregate scoring that we use. This took place in mid-november and the weather had really changed. We can t complain though, the rains and wind seemed to stop for our match and then continued again after we were finished. This new shooting year brought some other new things along with it. Phil Wiebe brought his new C. Sharps Arms Model 1877 Lower-Sharps to the match. He had received it only a week earlier so loads and sight settings are not ironed out as yet. Phil selected a round barrel for this gun, in.40/70 SS caliber. Quite the rifle and we ll be seeing more of it, that s an easy bet. The sporting tang sight on this 77 is by Ron Heilman. Mike Nesbitt was using his new.44/70 caliber Model 74 Hartford by C. Sharps Arms as well and you can read more about that in another story in this edition. Seven shooters were physically present for this initial Old West Centerfires match for (Jim Dickerman had shot his targets early.) The weather was quite reasonable and the weatherman seems to have fit us in between a couple of fall systems. Coffee was on hand for those who needed a warm-up and scoring was a combined effort with Mike Nesbitt running quality control.

9 Again the match prizes were awarded with selection for a combination of club-provided meat prizes, and merchandise items from C. Sharps Arms plus some lube from SPG. As with the match previously discussed, you can see who placed where and with what in the listing below. However, having two 5 th place shooters must be explained; Jim Dickerman shot his targets in advance because was not able to make it to this match. That s fine, we certainly allow for targets to be shot in advance and witnessed so shooters can still be competitive with the yearly aggregate. Then Bob DeLisle shot an identical score. Normally we d use the longest range target as a tiebreaker, which would break the tie in Jim s favor. This time it was easily decided to simply have two shooters in 5 th place. We can be sure that things will iron out as the year goes by and we ll get a shooting prize to Jim later when he returns from his travels. You might also notice that Allen Cunniff was not at this match. It is unusual for Allen to miss a match but he was running around in Texas while we were doing our shooting. And he will have a tale to tell. After completion of the established course of fire, an optional relay was held for a couple of after aggregate matches. This mainly is done for shooters interested in trying an offhand event. The target used was a 50-yard Standing Bear and the five participants each fired Mike s group with the.50/70 paper patch 5 shots after contributing a quarter to the pot. Bob DeLisle carried the pot away (again) with a score of 44 shooting an original Model 1892 Winchester short rifle in This match (off-hand) used the protocol previously discussed. A similar informal competition using paper patch bullets for 5 rounds at 50 yards on the buffalo bullseye target went to Mike Nesbitt, shooting his short barreled.50/70 Sharps, the rifle he calls his camp gun, with a nice group for a 44. Mike s group would have scored better but his rifle s sight was set for 100 yards and was not checked before the shots were fired. Our short-range matches are a lot of fun and challenging too. Try to join us. Scores for our first Match of 2018 Name Rifle/Cartridge 100 yd. 200 yd. Total 1 st Don Kerr 1874 C. Sharps Arms.45/90 91-X 96-3X 187-4X 2 nd Mike Nesbitt 1874 C. Sharps Arms.44/ X 95-2X 184-4X 3 rd Jeff Ritter Remington rolling block.45/ X 95-X 180-3X 4 th J. R. Ritter 1874 Shiloh Sharps.45/70 82-X 91-X 173-2X 5 th Bob DeLisle 1874 Pedersoli Sharps.45/ th Jim Dickerman 1874 Shiloh Sharps.45/ th Phil Wiebe 1877 C. Sharps Arms.40/70 SS th Jerry Mayo 1874 C. Sharps Arms.45/

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12 OUTSTANDING PRODUCTS: by Mike Nesbitt APOLOGIES TO MR. BROOKS It was a couple of years ago that I got my 405 grain bullet mold for my.44/77 from Steve Brooks and his Brooks Tru-Bore Bullet Moulds. We ve all heard several good things about Steve and the molds he makes. What I wanted was a 405 grain base pour version of the old Ideal # for my.44/77 by C. Sharps Arms. While looking at his web site and comparing bullet shapes, the nose of the bullet I ordered follows the original Postell shape. Behind that are three lube grooves which carry a good amount of lubricant. No crimp groove or gas check, this is simply a very good black powder bullet. Getting that bullet mold, after just a couple of weeks of waiting, began a complete list of new lessons for me. First, I needed to learn how to cast bullets with that mold. Yes, I had been casting bullets for years but this mold was the first one that demanded being pre-heated before it would drop a good and complete bullet. The only secret to getting good bullets was to simply follow Steve Brooks recommendations, which I finally did. After that, making those good bullets was not a problem. What was a problem, for me, was getting those good bullets to shoot well. There I was, with a fine rifle and loads topped off with bullets from a very highly regarded bullet mold but they would not shoot for me. That s why, in my first review of this mold and the bullets it cast, the group I showed in TASS was only one hand high Speaking very frankly, I had given up on that bullet but that was wrong. I didn t know how wrong until talking with Dennis Mitchell, another.44 rifle shooter. We were actually talking about performance with the Straight and I mentioned how I could not get a good group. He immediately asked me which wad I was using, the.44 wads that measure.446 or the wads actually made for the.45 Colt which are sometimes sold for the.44 rifles that measure.456. I admitted that I had the.456 wads. Dennis said to change that right away. It just so happens that I had returned from Quigley where John Olsen had three nice bags of the.060 John Walters.446 wads on his trade table and I had bought them all. So, a very quick five rounds were loaded in.44/77 cases. I had intended to use 70 grains of Olde Eynsford 2F powder in these loads but I was impatient and when the measure poured out 72 grains I said Good enough and just kept going. Those five rounds were then taken to the range where a single target was posted at just 50 yards. They were fired, from the bench, without spotting between shots so their performance was never checked until all five were shot. The results really surprised and delighted me. All five shots were in a tight string which only shows three holes. Four of the bullets went through the lower jagged hole with one shot slightly higher. This was fired while using the standard blade front sight. Later these bullets were given a speed check with the 72 grain loading and out of my Sharps 28 barrel they zip across the screens at 1,350 fps. They were also checked out of the 32 barrel of my rolling block at 1,375 fps. Now this round nosed original Postell 405 grain bullet from the Brooks mold is my standard bullet for my.44/77 rifles and the 72 grains of OE 2F is my standard loading. Why the.456 Walters.060 wads don t work well can only be guessed at. They apparently create an inconsistency within the barrel where the.446 Walters wads remain very consistent which allows the bullet to perform with excellent accuracy. So now I m offering my apologies to Steve Brooks for doubting that his bullet was capable of accurate shooting. That is what I thought and I m glad I never announced it. However, now I m even more eager to recommend Brooks molds. Contacting Steve about a mold is very easy but first take a look at their web site at brooksmoulds.com. Then you can send them an , or write to; Brooks Tru-Bore Bullet Moulds, 1610 Dunn Avenue, Walkerville, Montana 59701, or telephone them at

13 .50/70 RCBS File Trim Die Perhaps several of you know that I do quite a bit of shooting with.50/70 caliber rifles. Rifles must be in the plural form because at this time I have four rifles with that chambering, three Sharps and one rolling block. At any rate, I can and do go through some ammo for the.50/70s from time to time. My point in opening this conversation that way was just to point out how I do a fair amount of shooting with the.50/70s but at the same time I didn t think certain tools or accessories were going to be needed. One of those accessories, now I ll The trim die is seen with some just-trimmed and loaded cases try to be more specific, that I didn t think was necessary was a file trim die or some other way of trimming the.50/70 cases. Perhaps I was thinking that a.50/70 just wasn t spectacular enough to stretch its brass but that was the wrong way to be thinking. The way I did my loading of the.50/70s probably didn t contribute to the stretching of the brass but it certainly allowed any stretching of the cases to go unnoticed until recently. I would usually just expand the fired cases, to be sure the mouths of those cases was rounded out, prime, add the measured dose of powder, compress that powder under a veggie wad, and then seat the bullets, grease groove slugs from an Accurate Molds #52-450L2 sized to.512, with my fingertips. The final step in the assembly of my loaded rounds was to run the loads through a taper crimp die which lightly but firmly made sure the bullets would stay in the cases. That worked very well and the loads with the un-sized cases would fit the chambers of all my.50/70 rifles without any fuss at all. But then I made a slight change in my reloading routine and started to seat and crimp the bullets at the same time in a seating die. Then it became immediately obvious that my brass had grown to different lengths, some of them were really in need of attention. The taper crimp dies, while doing its job very well, didn t offer any feel for a case that was longer than the others but the seating die certainly did, with or without crimping. My next move was to look at the web site of Buffalo Arms which showed that they had the file trim dies for the.50/70 by RCBS and those dies were in stock. An order was quickly placed. I m guessing that C. Sharps Arms also has the file trim dies for the calibers they commonly chamber but their inventory wasn t as quickly available as Buffalo Arms. After my order was placed I had to wait only two days before the highly anticipated accessory arrived in the mail. It was actually surprising to see how much some of my.50/70 cases had stretched. Now my loading procedures with the.50/70s have increased by one more step; I use the file trim die to check the length of every case, shortening the stretched cases as needed. The trimmed brass makes the loading of those cases much more consistent and that can t be bad at all. And my compliments to RCBS for making those good file trim dies.

14 BOOK REVIEW: THE GUNPOWDER PEOPLE James Bequette has written an interesting book about the Hodgdon Powder Company and the Hodgdon family. This celebrates the 70 th anniversary of the founding of that company which began when Bruce Hodgdon purchased quantities of surplus 4895 military powders following World War II. With Hodgdon s first ad which appeared in the January, 1948, issue of The American Rifleman, the young company started selling powders to the American reloaders. I didn t start reloading ammunition quite that early but reading the first parts of this book did bring back memories of using surplus military powders. That was really the way to go, after all, it gave more shooting for the money. There were several times when I d go with a friend to a particular gun shop where we could buy surplus 4895 for about 65 cents per pound and 4831 for only 50 cents per pound. And we d receive those pounds of powder pour loose into paper bags. Yes, things were different in those days A lot of my shooting back then was with cast bullets in the.348, using rather large charges of But more about the book and the Hodgdon Powder Company. One small part of their history and service to the American shooters is missing from this book. That was in the early 1970s after the DuPont plant where black powder was made burned down, or at least was destroyed. Hodgdon stepped in and offered Hodgdon Black Powder which was actually Curtis s & Harvey s powder from England, relabeled and then distributed. For at least a few years, that was the only black powder we could conveniently get and without Hodgdon, our black powder sports would have been starved out of sight. That was also the time when our black powder sports, mostly muzzleloading and buckskinning, were really taking off and coming alive. Yes, that s the time which is often referred to as the Hawken craze. It was Hodgdon that made black powder available to the shooters back then and why this isn t mentioned in the book, I don t know. But I m pleased to mention it. The book does give appropriate space to Dan Pawlak, the inventor of Pyrodex. I m very pleased to see that because Dan was a good friend of mine. When Dan and two of his employees died in 1976 a real void was left that was never completely refilled. Much more recently, as you should remember, Hodgdon purchased GOEX, Inc. This puts Hodgdon at the top of the list for manufacturers of black powder, in my opinion. The current Olde Eynsford line of powder is my favorite for shooting in cartridges and the GOEX black powder is what I burn in muzzleloaders. Shortly after Hodgdon purchased GOEX, I asked one of the GOEX managers how they felt about the purchase. The people at GOEX were delighted and that was very pleasing to hear. This interesting book about the Hodgdon family and the Hodgdon Powder Company is available right now on the Hodgdon web site at gunpowder-people/ for $44.95 and that price includes the shipping.

15 THE SET SCREW OF ALL SET SCREWS My rattling Jeep is probably to blame for this one It has a vibration that seems to un-set set screws. Recently while out shooting, I had to notice that the set screw for the vertical adjustment on the deluxe tang sight was missing and without that screw, the sight can t be trusted to maintain its vertical hold. So, I sent a note to Pat Dulin at C. Sharps Arms mentioning that I needed another set screw. Yes, I said another because this has happened before. And I m not trying to sound heroic when I tell you, when it happened before it was because a shooting partner had lost a set screw. I m not the only one who has this problem. But to get that partner back on the firing line, I robbed a set screw from one of my Sharps rifles and gave it to him. That worked fine but it did put me in the wants for another set screw. So, this time Pat has really done it! I received a package from C. Sharps Arms which contained the set screw of all set screws. This one is huge! And around the perimeter of the large knob is inscribed, If Found, return to Mike Nesbitt. How could I lose this one? While this is a good joke on me, I m actually quite proud of it. And on the face of this large set screw s knob are four holes, each one filled with a proper sized set screw. This makes the huge set screw a holder for a fine battery of set screws. You can bet this huge set screw will be in my line box most of the time, I only put it on the rifle just to show that it will fit.

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17 Deer Hunting with the Venerable By Rick Hamilton I felt good nestled on the log, with a large cottonwood behind me to break my silhouette. The long and warming tendrils of sunlight were just beginning to bring a slight touch of warmth to the frosty sunrise. My viewing position was at the juncture of a large block of cottonwoods and a long north/south line of thin cottonwoods with a meadow adjoining both. There were still enough pickings in the meadow to keep the deer interested on a frosty cold morning. It was opening morning of rifle deer season in Nebraska. This was an unexpected hunt, as I had been given a reprieve after a week s worth of medical tests in Minnesota, and had 4 days to drive home, hunt, and return, which leaves plenty of time for deer hunting, right? Well I also had to load some rounds, and do a little practice beforehand as well. I had successfully taken a buffalo with my 40-65, 1874 Sharps by Pedersoli, using a single pass-through shot, but never a deer. The bullet that I used on the buffalo and planned on using for the deer hunt, would be a paper patched, 350 grain, concave base, Hoch nose pour mold, using a 20-1 ratio alloy. The stock has been reworked to replicate an original Sharps. The sights have also been customized to my liking. The rest of the loaded round components consists of Remington brass, BR-2 primers, GOEX 2F powder by volume so when compressed to.238 over a.030 vegetable fiber wad, the final seat is.628. The brass is fire formed and then never resized. These bullets are patched to groove and this combination is the most accurate of all my Sharps rifles. From yards it will stack shots using an ivory front sight and a Shiloh fold-up ladder rear sight. I had in the past taken a whitetail buck with an Armi Sharps 1874 replica, using Swiss 2F and a Lyman 500 gr. gov. bullet. It was one shot, a broken rib and through the vitals, and down for the count. As I watched a whitetail doe and a couple of yearlings come down the tree line and pass by me at less than 50 yards, I felt a calm serenity. The warming sun, slight wind quartering to me from the deer, bespoke of the perfect opening morning. The just felt natural in my hands, sometimes I feel like I was born 150 years too late! Watching the doe carefully, I noticed she stopped and looked back several times with ears perked, so I had my eyes looking down the tree line, hoping for the emergence of a buck. As any deer hunter knows the deer usually show up where you least expect them, and that is exactly what happened. A buck appeared but not in the tree line, he was about 150 yards out in the open on an old alfalfa field on the other side of the tree line from me! He also had slipped by farther than I would have liked. My position was set up for a shot down the tree line and to get positioned to where he was stopped now, looking back down the tree line, required a ninety degree shift on my part. He had stopped for just an instant and appeared to be ready for a quick departure. I swung the gun around to my left, and found a nice clearing in the trees. Rick with the.40/65 and a very fine buck

18 With no time to look for a rest I settled the tip of the ivory blade on the heart, set the back trigger, and then gently squeezed the front trigger. The rifle roared, the smoke cloud billowed back into my face and I had no idea if I had been successful. After the smoke cleared, I walked over to the spot where he had been standing and found a significant amount of dark red blood, and a trail leading over to the tree line. The tracking was easy in the snow and I found him lying dead under a cedar tree. He had travelled about 60 yards after the shot. The shot on impact had clipped a rib, went through the heart, and passed through the other side. The exit wound was slightly larger than the entrance. The 350 grain paper patch bullet had performed perfectly. In keeping with the more traditional style of hunt, I resurrected my old Marbles Woodcraft knife from the early 1900 s, for the field dressing. There are very few knives made today that can be considered a combination ripper and skinner, and this knife is one of them. It still retains an edge you can shave with. Because the performed so well on the first outing after deer, I elected to use it again, during Nebraska s rifle deer season in November, The pre-requisite loading, and target shooting, showed the had not lost its edge. Three shots off sticks at 100 yards, 150 yards, and 200 yards, Rifle, a.40/65 paper patch load, and that Marble s Woodcraft knife stacked all three shots on one another. I might add a word about sights at this juncture. I am an aficionado of barrel sights for hunting and every animal I have hunted with a Sharp s rifle, including a large number of buffalo, have had barrel sights used. This particular gun has an ivory front blade that shows up extremely well on buffalo as well as deer. Using only the v-sight with the ladder folded down, I am able to shoot out to 200 yards with no changes on sight itself, only using a fine, medium, and coarse sight picture. I know the previous hunt just described would not have allowed time to do any sight adjusting with a Vernier or even ladder sight. I had used my rangefinder ahead of time on various landmarks to range various distances, so that also aids in a quick shot. Having more time to plan this hunt as opposed to the previous, I was more prepared. My favorite method is either still hunting on a nasty, cold, snowy day or just sitting and waiting in a pre-determined spot. I never like to head out in the dark to a sitting spot as I have busted too many deer that way. So at first shooting light, off I went with the trusty on my shoulder. We have an old calf shelter that has an open end and windows all around that was located on the edge of a grove of trees with full view of meadow and the same tree line I had taken deer on previous hunt. I had not been in blind for more than 30 minutes when a very small mule buck and some does came by and laid down not more than 25 yards from me on the edge of the trees! Now I am a meat eater, but this little guy didn t have a lot of meat on him, so I continued to wait. Within an hour I caught sight of movement in the shelterbelt due north of me, about 300 yards away. Sure enough out steps a mule doe. In short order another joins her. Within a few minutes there were 7 does and they were all headed directly for me. Unfortunately as they got closer they veered to the downwind size of my blind. At the same instant I see a nice mule buck just coming out of the trees and headed for the does! My first thought was I am busted. These does were wary, sniffing the air, and then moved away another 100 yards from me and continued on south and past me. The buck still continued on his bee-line to the does, sniffing the ground on occasion. Well, maybe this is going to turn out alright after all, I thought! The does went on by and then did a fish-hook and started

19 combing directly back to my blind. As I saw it at that point they were going to get a good whiff of me and take off before the buck got in range, spooking him in the process. All I could now do was wait. I know the does smelled me but they are also used to the mix of human scents around machinery and buildings here on the ranch, so when they got up within 20 yards of my blind and went to grazing I knew I had a real shot at things, pun intended. The buck did not come straight in and veered off in a sort of wide semi- circle. I think he had seen the does with their nose in the air earlier and was a little skittish. Patience is usually rewarded when hunting and sure enough he circled around and came within 80 yards of me and presented a nice broadside shot. I settled the fine sight with the tip of the ivory just showing in the bottom of the v rear sight on the heart area. With the rear trigger set, the light squeeze on the forward trigger was instantly followed by a load roar and copious amount of smoke. The 350 grain paper patch bullet took out most of a rib on entry, passed through the top of the heart, and exited between ribs on the far side. The buck only went about 10 yards, laid down, and closed his eyes. My wife had heard that one shot and came out to help me with some pictures and also field dressing. For this traditional hunt I elected to use my Gutman cutlery, Solingen German knife. This knife was a knock-off of the Marbles woodcraft knife, but is actually a little better ripping/skinner combination due to a little sharper point on them. I have used this knife alone on buffalo before and it worked well. This knife also has a lot of deep sentimental value to me, it was my Grandfather s, a WW1 vet. He was an avid fisherman and Rick poses with the 2 nd buck nailed with the.40/65 hunter, and also did a lot of guiding hunts and fishing trips for people, back in the early days of hunting in our state. In closing I can state that with three shots, the has brought down a buffalo, and two deer. With my hunting clients I always told them that the was about the smallest I would recommend for buffalo. In my limited experience they are an excellent deer cartridge, plus they fulfill that traditional sense that is so alive in many of us. The seems to be an inherently accurate cartridge, and the lighter recoil compared to the larger.45 s, is finding favor today with both younger and also shooters in our later years. Stay tuned for more traditional hunting adventures with the in the future! From the Hills This is the Solingen Gutman copy of the Marble s Woodcraft It s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled, Mark Twain.

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