C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc.

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1 Edition Published by C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc. Dan Simon Skip Long Range Match, 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 2016

2 THE AMERICAN SHARPS SHOOTERS Publisher: C. Sharps Arms Co. Inc., John R. Schoffstall President Mike Nesbitt Editor (miken54@centurylink.net) Allen Cunniff --- Field Contributor (tpigskin@comcast.net) Dangerous Don McDowell - - Field Contributor (ranch13@hotmail.com) Table of contents: Page WASHINGTON S 1 ST BPTR LONG RANGE CHAMPIONSHIPS by Mike Nesbitt OLD WEST CENTERFIRES by Bob Gietz Outstanding Products....;;..15 A CASE FOR THE.40/50 BOTTLENECK by Dean Becker.....,, Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason, Mark Twain

3 The Adventures of The Long Ranger WASHINGTON STATE S FIRST BPTR LONG RANGE CHAMPIONSHIPS By Mike Nesbitt Welcome to a story under a brand new heading which is devoted to long range black powder shooting. For this first appearance of these adventures, I ll give you a rather appropriate story about Washington s very first Long Range Championships. We ll try to cover the doin s at this recent match in detail. And, in at least one way, I ve got a good background to write this story about Washington s first long range match, because that was also my first long range match. Believe me, I learned a lot and it was certainly an adventure. This match was conducted by Ash Garman, a noted long range shooter who favors paper patched bullets in his C. Sharps Arms.45/110, representing the Washington State Rifle & Pistol Association. Ash contacted me well over a month in advance, saying he was managing this match and he expected me to be there. In addition, he expected a fair number of other shooters to be there too but it really didn t turn out that way. All we can say now is that those who didn t attend and shoot in this match will never completely know what they have missed. As it was, on the morning of registrations only six riflemen signed up. Well, there s really nothing wrong with that and it does make it easier for me to tell you more in detail about the shooting and the event. One detail will get mentioned over and over and that is the wind. This match was held at the Rattlesnake Mountain Shooting Facility near Benton City, Washington, and that range is well known for its very windy conditions. Ash even commented that there are a number of known long range shooters who might not want to stake their reputations against that wind. That is possible but if those more experienced shooters had shown up the winds wouldn t have bothered them anymore than it bothered those of us who were there. And four of our shooters in this match were quite well experienced. They ll be mentioned when their times come. Right now I want to introduce just one of the other shooters. His name is Gordon Gerken and this was his very first BPTR match too. Gordon, some might say, was the complete opposite from me. He was an experience high power long range shooter who had never tried black powder. I, on the other hand, had experience with

4 black powder but had never shot long range. We both learned a lot, enough that we re not so inexperienced now, but we know we ve got a lot more left to learn. Gordon was rather well equipped too, he was shooting a C. Sharps Arms Highwall in.45/90. The loads he was using, and all of the others too, will be shown in an equipment list before this story gets wrapped up. The shooters scores for each individual target will also be shown along with the total aggregate scores. I m going to talk about the shooting in this long range match just like I m talking to someone who has never seen one of these matches. For some of you that will seem redundant but if you have never seen a BPTR long range match, then you might not be as lost as I was when this one got started. And, just in case you are as lost as I was, you ll get a lot of help because no shoots are as friendly as the black powder cartridge matches. Mike Nesbitt and Gordon Gerken, first time long rangers The course of fire for one of these matches includes fifty shots fired for score plus an unlimited amount of sighter shots. To be fairly well prepared for that, I took 120 rounds for my.44/90. That was enough ammo, and I did use 82 rounds. Ash and I got to the range fairly early on the day before the match was to actually start and we found three other shooters waiting at the gate to get in. That day was spent doing some shooting at the targets from each of the three distances; 800, 900, and 1000 yards. This was good doin s and it gave me the chance to make some notes on elevation settings for the rear sight. During that sight-in period, I never did hit the 1000 yard target but that still gave me the chance to get a good place to start from when the match was actually shot, the next day. Yes, I could have used more ammo and eventually hit the 1000 yard target but that would not have served me any more purpose than what was already done. For what needed doing, those close misses were just fine. Things got more serious the next day. I was assigned to relay #1 at 800 yards. Notes were referred to in order to set my rear sight, a couple of sighter shots were fired to make sure of things, and then I declared my shooting would be for score. All went rather well, in my opinion. Not all of my shots hit the target but I did finish my 800 yard shooting with a score of 56. That s not enough to win but the boys did know I was trying. Some observations; all of the shooters at this match used the prone position with cross-sticks except me. I prefer to use the sitting position, with cross-sticks. For me the sitting position is simply easier, much more comfortable. It is the shooter s option to use the next harder position. Also, NRA rules do not allow the use of stools or chairs while shooting from the sitting position. We do sometimes see Match winner, Dan Steinmetz fires his.45/90 custom rolling block those sitting stools at other shoots. When the relay begins, the range master calls out, Ready on the right, ready on the left. Ready on the firing line. When your target comes up, you have 30 minutes to fire unlimited sighter shots and 10 shots for score. Then, after just a couple of seconds pause, he calls for Targets Up! and the shooting begins. Thirty minutes later a cease-fire was called. All of us got our shots off with no problems. In fact, we actually finished early. That s when score cards were reviewed and signed, becoming our official match documents. With the firing line safe, all rifles were removed from the line as shooters in relay 2 began their preparations. There was also a rotation where shooters who had just completed the first relay went to the pits to pull targets for the next relay of shooters. Duty in the pits is something I hadn t done for about 50 years and some

5 changes were quickly noticed. Years ago we used a paddle to flag the score of the shot back to the shooters. Now a black or white marker is used, depending on whether the bullet went through the black or the white on the target. That indicates the location of the hit. Also, an orange marker (or two) is used to indicate the score of the hit by the location where the marker is placed. After the marker and the score indicator are positioned, the target is raised so the spotter on the firing line and look through the scope and pass the info on to the shooter. Those markers remain on the target while the next shot is fired. That target, by the way, is 6 square with a 44 diameter bullseye. The white marker shows the hit a 10 o clock, the orange marker shows it s a 9 Orange markers tell the score, at 3 o clock is a 6, at 9 o clock is a 7, lower left corner is an 8, bottom middle (as shown) is a 9, and lower right corner is a 10. In the very same spot as a 6 (middle, right side) is where an X is shown along with the marker in the center. After the next shot, these markers will be moved. Only one shot is shown at a time. And that 44 bullseye gets even smaller when the shooting line is taken back to 900 yards, as I found out two relays later. A couple of sighting shots were fired to confirm the elevation setting and then I was shooting for score. My number if misses increased but I also got an X! Now, getting that X was a treat but I really don t know how it happened. After all, if I knew how it happened I would have done it again As it turned out, my score at 900 yards was 35-1X and I claim that with no shame at all. Right after that, we fell back to the 1000 yard line, to the same line from where I had not hit the target during our sighting-in the day before. Better luck was with me this time, and I was trying a little harder, because out of my 10 shots for score, the target was hit three times. That gave me a score of 20. While I did wish my score was better, Ash Garman complimented me by relating how on his first 1000 yard target in a match he turned in a score of 7. If you ve never done it before, shooting a new course of fire is really a new ball game. Anyway, I was pleased to do as well as I did and my scores certainly leave room for improvement while encouraging me to try again at the same time. After the final relay that Saturday, we adjourned to a bar-beque at the club house put on by the shooting club. That was some doin s for sure. In addition to the bar-be-que, a local Sharps collector brought several samples from his collection and displayed them in the club house along with giving a rather brief but complete run-down on the history of the Sharps Creedmoor Just part of the group who dines at the Saturday afternoon bar-be-que models in addition to other

6 sporting and target rifles. That bar-be-que dinner and the look at the original Sharps rifles were well worth the trip by themselves. Scores were added up for Saturday and Simon Smith, from Portland, Oregon, was in the lead by just one point and one X. But Sunday proved to be another day. We had a very stiff tailwind that next morning, strong enough to take the hat off of your head. But it was coming from straight behind us so our windage adjustments could be set to zero or close to it. Elevation settings dropped a bit. And scores from all of us were rather high as shown in the listing at the end of this tale. In my ammo were some Simon Smith aims on the 1000 yard line, I snapped this picture while spotting for him.44/90s loaded with 520 grain bullets cast from a Paul Jones mold. I had only 16 of those loads and decided to try them on our first 1000 yard target for the day. Four of them were used as sighter shots and then the next ten rounds were fired for score. Those did very well and my score on that target was a delightful 51 out of the 100 points possible. That score put me in 3 rd place for that target. Maybe I should use that bullet more often. But before the next target could be fired at the wind had changed again. It became what Ash Garman calls a fishtailing-tailwind, one that whips one way and then the other with no particular rhythm, rhyme, or reason. Wind flags are no help in a breeze like that and, of course, we didn t have wind flags behind us. You d fire and miss. Then the spotter would say your shot went to the right, as an example. So, you d dial in some leftward windage before shooting again but that shot would go even farther to the right. After getting tired of wasting sighter shots, I told my spotter Mike Rector that I was going to shoot for score. That didn t help, my shots were still missing the target. Finally on shot #7 Mike Rector watches while I send another one down range I got lucky and scored a 6. Shot #8 was luckier, giving me a 7. I really thought I d score on shot #9 but was three feet to the right. More left windage was added for shot #10 but that still went three feet to the right. Just two hits for 16 points. Dan Steinmetz was more patient than I. He fired several sighter shots trying to figure the wind out. Finally he had to shoot for score because he was running out of time. And he did get some scoring hits, just enough that he scored 24 on this target. His father Skip did the best on this last target, he fishtailed his shots onto the paper well enough to score a 41. Everyone s score on that target was lower than the previous target.

7 Gordon Gerken, Mike Rector, Dan Steinmetz, Ash Garman, Skip Steinmetz, Mike Nesbitt, Simon Smith & Mark Blondin Target scores from the two 1000 ers were quickly added to the scores from the day before and Dan Steinmetz had become the first Washington State BPTR Long Range Champion by crawling ahead of Simon Smith by 8 points. Dan s name goes on the winner s plaque, seen on the previous page. Another 8 points behind Simon was Skip Steinmetz which shows how close this match was. Mark Blondin placed 4 th, followed by me and then Gordon. Plaques were awarded to the winners of each target plus the top three in the aggregate. That s how my first long range match went and it was certainly an adventure. This is a match I will attend again and the next Washington State BPTR Long Range Championships are already on the calendar. In 2017 the long range match will be held over May 5-7 and that s the weekend before Mother s Day. It will be just like this year s with 800, 900, and 1000 yard targets on Saturday followed by two more 1000 yard targets to be fired on Sunday. They re also going to add a mid-range match (300 and 600 yards, not part of the long range match) on Friday morning before the long range practice begins. For information please contact Ash Garman, Match Director, at garman.oman@gmail.com. MATCH RESULTS NAME TOTAL 1. Don Steinmetz Simon Smith X X 3. Skip Steinmetz X X 4. Mark Blondin 70-2X X 5. Mike Nesbitt X X 6. Gordon Gerken Competitors Equipment: Dan Steinmetz: Remington Rolling Block,.45-90, 82gr Swiss 1½F, 540gr Money bullet Simon Smith: Pedersoli Rolling Block,.45-70, Win LRM primer, 68gr OE 2F,.060 fiber wad, 500gr Gov t bullet Skip Steinmetz: Winchester Hghwall,.45-90, Fed 150 LP primer, 80gr Swiss 2F, 550gr Money bullet Mark Blondin: C. Sharps Model 74,.45-70, LP primer, 57gr 3F Swiss, plastic wad, 540gr Money bullet Mike Nesbitt: C. Sharps Model 74,.44-90, CCI LR primer, 90gr OE 1½F, card wad, 470gr Lyman # bullet Gorden Gerken: C. Sharps High Wall,.45-90, Fed 215 LRM primer, 80gr Swiss 3F, 535gr bullet

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9 Old West Centerfires By Bob Gietz The gorgeous weather might have contributed to the very good turnout we had for this match, ten Sharps shooters came to test their skills. Like before, we ll try to say a little about each one of them but in general the scores were a bit lower than what some of these shooters expected. And among those ten shooters were three new ones, their first time to compete in our short range matches. While some of the shooters were disappointed with their scores, Allen Cunniff really can t say that. He was shooting another new rifle, a Pedersoli this time, and with that apparently very well trained rifle he landed 1 st place with a 2 point margin. There was nothing disappointing about that. And in second place was one of our new shooters, Skip Steinmetz from Yakima. Skip is not new to shooting by any means, as you can tell from the lead story in this edition of The American Sharps Shooter where he took 3 rd place in the Washington State Black Powder Long Range Championships but this was his first time to face the difficulties of shooting at our 50 and 100 yard matches. Skip did very well and we can t say that he was spooked or intimidated at all by these short ranges. Skip s wife, Chris, Skip Steinmetz and his wife Chris shot with us for their first time joined us as well and it was quite nice having a lady on the firing line again. Skip and Chris shared a rifle, Skip s big Model 1874 in.45/70. Sharing a rifle is easy to do and that doesn t interfere with anything because we had relay changes after every target. And that rifle is something to see, it s a special order gun from C. Sharps Arms with a heavy #2 barrel that goes from octagon to round just before the end of the forearm. It must weigh over 14 pounds which is alright because we have no offhand shooting in these matches. Taking 3 rd place was Bob DeLisle using his.45/70 and he did very well, out shooting all of those other shooters who followed him on both targets. Maybe we should hope that Bob will wear that rifle out pretty soon which might give some of the others better chances. And only three points behind Bob came Jim Dickerman, shooting with his.45/70 Shiloh well enough to capture 4 th place. Jim usually scores very well in our Old West Centerfires matches and my saying that is not meant to imply that he didn t do well this time. He did shoot very well and let me invite you to look at the scores in the listing where you will note that the point spread for the top four shooters was only six points.

10 Then came Don Kerr. Don needs some excellent recognition because in our most recent matches he has not scored as well. We can guess that it took a little practice to bring those scores up. Good going, Don! Trailing Don by just one point was Loco Jeff Ritter, with his Shiloh Sharps in.45/70. Loco Jeff is one of our more regular shooters who never seems to miss a match. Jeff and Jim Dickerman are the only two shooters who have accumulated over 700 points toward the season aggregate so far. We still have two matches to go in this season and our last match will be held in September. That gives some of the shooters a slight chance to catch up but you can bet that Jeff will be sitting pretty comfortable in the season aggregate. In seventh place we find Will Ulry and this was Will s first time to shoot in this season of matches. It was good to see Will back on the firing line again and we can easily expect him to shoot some higher scores after he gets his good shooting habits refreshed just a little bit. Down in eighth place was Mike Nesbitt and he had an interesting excuse. He used his heavy.44/90 again but he only had to fire a shot or two before realizing that he still had severe windage dialed into his long range sight, left that way from the match at Rattlesnake. That cost him a shot on the 50 yard target and then he also had trouble remembering to shoot while wearing shooting glasses! (Sight adjustments must be made with reading glasses and then he forgets to change back to his shooters.) And playing a new game for the first time was Jerry Mayo shooting a borrowed C. Sharps Arms rifle in.50/70 caliber. Jerry Jerry Mayo in his modified sitting position had practiced with this rifle rather well but

11 never from the sitting position. Some work needs to be done there but soon enough we ll see Jerry bringing his scores up. We can guess that he s hooked, so a new Sharps should be on his list of things to get. While we ve just given you the rundown of shooters as per their scores, let me say that the feelings on the firing line are much more aimed at having fun rather than strict or straight competition. Having a good time is the most important thing and with the small items for awards donated by both the Capitol City Rifle and Pistol Club plus the goods provided by C. Sharps Arms Company, every shooter received a prize. Scores for this Match Name Rifle/Cartridge 50 yd. 100 yd. Total Accum. Allen Cunniff 1874 Pedersoli.45/ X 90-2X 186-8X X Skip Steinmetz 1874 C. Sharps Arms.45/ X 87-X 184-6X 184-6X Bob DeLisle 1874 Pedersoli Sharps,.45/ X 87-2X 183-4X 533-8X Jim Dickerman 1874 Shiloh Sharps.45/ X 86-2X 180-5X X Don Kerr 1874 C Sharps Arms.45/ X Jeff Ritter 1874 Shiloh Sharps.45/70 90-X 83-X 173-2X 707-5X Will Ulry 1874 Shiloh Sharps.45/ X X 171-2X Mike Nesbitt 1874 C Sharps Arms.44/ X X 680-8X Chris Steinmetz 1874 C. Sharps Arms.45/ Jerry Mayo 1874 C. Sharps Arms.50/ Not shooting in this match Mike Moran 167-2X Lew Gaiser 156 Sam Snelson 357-4X The accumulative scores are shown in the last column. We have two matches to go for this season.

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15 OUTSTANDING PRODUCTS: by Mike Nesbitt WAD PUNCHES FROM BUFFALO ARMS Back in the edition of The American Sharps Shooters I put a short note in this column about a wad punch from Buffalo Arms and I realize that not nearly enough was said about it. Let me correct such an error now and to help me have more to say, I followed up and ordered more punches for other calibers. Yes, in my earlier remarks it was mentioned how I planned on getting more of the punches from BACO and I m rather surprised to realize that I waited two years to get more! The punches I recently got were for.44 and.50 calibers. While using the punch for some.44 card wads I think I stumbled on to why these punches are so good. First of all, they are very sharp. But equally important as that is the fact that these punches are designed to punch out wads. That must sound rather elementary but let me explain. If we get a typical punch from the hardware store, such as a gasket punch, that type of punch is designed to punch a hole. The hole in the material is what they re going for, not the wad punch out of the hole. With those punches, the wad is simply waste in their standard use. But with the BACO punches, the wads are the primary product, so the insides of the punch, or the channel above the cutting edge, is more carefully cut. This means the wads are freer, with no binding, so they have much nicer edges with no curve or bending. My terms are probably not correct but I think you can understand what I mean. Using the punch for some.44 caliber rifle wads, which are listed at.450 diameter, with a hammer and a good piece of firewood as a working surface, a nice supply of wads was punched out in a rather short amount of time. And now, just as this is being written, I gave the.50 caliber wad punch a good try which netted me a nice stack to cardboard wads and I m ready to say everything all over again. It is simply a pleasure to use a punch that allows the very clean cut wads to fall out of the punch instead of needing to force the wads out. Two years ago when the.40 caliber wad punch was talked about in this column, it was given what amounts to less than a quarter of the page. This time we ll correct that, these wad punches are more than good enough to deserve a full page of attention. If a wad punch or a series of wad punches is on your list of things to get, by all means check out the punches from Buffalo Arms. Yes, I m only talking about the hammer-struck punches and they also offer punches you use in a reloading press as well as others that are used in a drill press. I m not into big production so the hammer-struck punches do me very well. Buffalo Arms makes their hammer-struck wad punches in eleven different sizes, from.32 caliber up to.50 for rifles and they also make.38,.38/40,.44/40 and.45 Colt for revolvers. These wad punches are priced at $18.00 each and they should give a full lifetime of good wads. To place an order, or to find out more about the other styles of wad punches, take a look on the Buffalo Arms web site at Or you can contact them at Buffalo Arms Company, 600 Vermeer Court, Ponderay, Idaho 83852, phone

16 CIMARRON S.44 COLT CONVERSIONS Cimarron Firearms Company is easily recognized as a leader in quality and authenticity for replica firearms. Since 1984 they have worked hard to bring replicas into this country that represent the best in authentic detail, fit, and finish in addition to the function and performance of the frontier-style firearms. We found those qualifications to be quite impressive in regard to the guns being featured here plus others. That is why we are devoting three pages to the description and field review of these two.44 Colt caliber revolvers. Studying the evolution or stepping stones in the transition from percussion revolvers to cartridge firing six-guns has always interested me. I m mainly thinking of the Colt revolvers as I say this. It is also rather interesting to notice and observe the changes or evolution in my own attitudes or ways of thinking about these revolvers. For example, when I got interested in these sixguns from Cimarron, at first it was because they could fire the.44 Russian cartridge. They will do that and very nicely too. But now that I ve gotten some experience with the guns my personal favorite loads have evolved to the.44 Colt cartridges. One reason for this is certainly historically based because the old.44 Colt was what several of the original conversion Cimarron s 8 barreled Richards-Mason and 5.5 Type II revolvers were chambered for. Another popular cartridge for the Colt conversions was the.44 henry rimfire. Those two cartridges were actually rather similar with the exception of ignition. The.44 Colt was a centerfire cartridge that used a heeled bullet of grains over up to grains of black powder which was introduced in That s a very hasty description of this old cartridge and it was used by the US Army for a couple of years, prior to the adoption of the.45 Colt in The.44 Colt was also used by civilians such as the buffalo hunters who were involved in the Battle of Adobe Walls in That s what really triggered my interests and the.44 Colt is an authentic revolver that hunters might have used to protect their camps prior to the availability of later styled handguns. The conversion revolvers make perfect teammates to go with the early styles of the Model 1874 (Hartford) Sharps rifles. My partner in getting a couple of the Cimarron conversions was Lynn Willecke and he decided on a Richards Type II conversion with a 5 ½ barrel while I wanted the Richards- Mason conversion with an 8 barrel, both guns in.44 Colt caliber. The new guns in.44 Colt will also chamber and.44 Colt and.44 Russian side by side shoot the.44 Russian cartridge and that s what we started shooting at first. (In fact, we originally intended to use these revolvers with.44 Russian ammo because we were already set up with cartridges and loading gear.) Prior to shooting our new guns, we both looked them over very well. These revolvers from Cimarron deserve a good looking at too, they re built better than I expected. One tiny feature that delighted me was the very light and nice trigger pull on the 8 barreled gun. Previous experience with imported replicas had made me expect stiffer springs and a much harder trigger pull. Not so with this one, and the 5 ½ barreled gun also had a welcome trigger pull. That s a very positive thing.

17 Both of our guns have the rear sighting notch cut into the top of the hammer, which can t be seen unless the hammer is in the cocked position. I had to wonder if my old eyes could see that and some preparations were made to use a V or a knife file to enlarge that notch. (The Model 1872 Open Top revolver has the rear sight on top of the barrel just forward of the cylinder.) Once outside in good lighting, even before the first shots were fired, it was nice to see that the rear sighting notch was just fine as is. No sighting changes were needed. Before getting to the shooting, some comments about ammunition should be made. There is a common question about whether these revolvers, which copy the early black powder six-guns, should be fired with only black powder loads. To answer that I will refer to the Instruction Manual that comes with the new guns and this manual is printed by Uberti so it isn t specifically from Cimarron Fire Arms. In that manual it says, in bold print, Make certain you are using only new commercially loaded ammunition of the correct caliber. (Warning: DO NOT use ammunition marked High Speed or High Velocity and NEVER use reloaded ammunition.) Later in the same manual comments are made to use new ammunition manufactured to industry specifications. With these statements we can be rather sure that smokeless powder loads are certainly acceptable. That all sounds very well and good, except for the part about never using reloaded ammunition. Let me guess, that statement is included by Uberti for warranty reasons. I will also guess any use of handloads can void any warranty for the gun. Not that it will, but that it can. While we must see the manufacturer s point of view on this subject, I don t know of Lynn Willecke with his Type II conversion any shooters, cowboy action or otherwise, who would get one of these or similar revolvers and would not intend to shoot it with handloaded ammo. Speaking just for myself, I broke that rule from the manual with the very first shot. (But that was quite a shot!) A standard pistol target was posted at just 12 yards and my very first five shots were taken while firing the gun onehanded. Those five rounds, handloads of course, in.44 Russian cases used the 250 grain round nose bullets but they were a mixture, three of the rounds were smokeless loads and two of them were black powder loads. The difference between those loadings was easily noticed in the smoke, flame, and the gun s recoil but they all hit very nicely. My target would have scored 49-X but I was much more impressed with the group size and the fact that this revolver was hitting right about at the point of aim. Then Lynn fired his.44 at a similar target. When the smoke cleared from his five shots, he turned to me with a grin and said, These things are right on, right out of the box! After that we quit shooting paper and turned our attention to metal knock-down targets. That was simply a lot of fun. Lynn and I were taking turns and just keeping mental This target holds Mike s first 5 shots note of who missed first. Let me say, with just a little bragging involved, I won. In fact, at that short shooting session I never missed. That isn t meant as a put-down about Lynn s shooting at all. I just happened to be one hit ahead of him and that was for a rather short time. Of course, this was only on our first day of shooting these new revolvers. More shooting at more targets might have changed which one of us remained with the most hits, that has been forgotten. What we aren t forgetting is how well we both were shooting as well as how much fun it was.

18 Now, for shooting with the.44 Colt cartridges, more details must be given. We loaded some of the Star Line.44 Colt cases with 25 grains of Olde Eynsford 2F under Lyman s.44/40 bullet, # That was a good stout load which must come fairly close to the original.44 Colt loads. However, we were using bullets with their grease grooves inside the cartridge cases and the old original.44 Colts had outside lubricated bullets. With smoke from a 25 grains of OE 2F load The load we tried, using 25 grains of powder beneath the 210 grain cast bullet, is certainly within the ball park. In addition to having a good bellow to it, those black powder.44 Colt loads hit very well. Jaminson Brass & Ammunition loads.44 Colts (using Star Line cases) with a 200 grain round nose flat point lead bullet which is also very accurate. As part of Jamison s Legacy Grade Ammunition the.44 Colts join other rifle and revolver cartridges such as the.44/40 and a fairly long list of others. I must admit that I enjoyed shooting the 8 barreled gun so much with the Jamison ammo that I didn t have any loaded rounds left when I wanted to take a picture. While the picture does show empty cases, it also shows a good group with a 10- shot score of 98 or 99. Good ammo, for sure. And I prepared a few rounds with a charge of 5.5 grains of Unique under the.44/40 cast bullets. Those proved to be very light in recoil and very pleasing to shoot. It s a good bet that a load similar to that will become my standard loading for the 8 barreled Richards-Mason conversion by Cimarron Arms A 10-shot group fired with Jamison ammo One tiny feature that both Lynn and I appreciate about these revolvers is that they are marked Cal..44 Colt on the underside of the barrels. We were told by Cimarron that newer guns might not carry that mark because they are considering making all of their.44 revolvers chambered for the.44 Special cartridge. The.44 Special is just about.05 longer than the.44 Colt and we can understand the practicality of Cimarron s idea. At the same time, we re just old fashioned enough to hope they do keep the.44 Colt designation. And, just because we did try them,.44 Special cartridges drop into the chambers on these two six-guns quite easily. Cimarron s renditions of the old Colt conversion revolvers are available in several configurations. They can be had with Army grips, Navy grips, with 4 ¾, 5 ½, 7 ½, or 8-inch long barrels and in calibers such as.38 Special, the.44s like we selected, and either.45 Schofield or.45 Colt. In our narrow (and perhaps narrowminded) review we have commented only on the.44 Colt version which was our choice and most certainly the most authentic. Not all versions are available in all of those calibers or barrel lengths so if you have an interest for more information by all means go to the Cimarron web site at Getting back to these two guns, our shooting with the.44 Colts is most enjoyable. We originally got these revolvers with the intention of shooting.44 Russian ammo but now that has changed almost completely. I say almost completely because we re still pleased that we can shoot the.44 Russian cartridges in these fine six-guns but their standard feedings will be with the.44 Colts using either black powder or smokeless powder loads that have already been described. We ll be shooting these revolvers for a good long time. Cimarron has many models to choose from, most certainly. We selected these two for ourselves because they simply fit our wants the best. And they fill those wants very well. Cimarron s price for the Richards- Mason conversion revolvers is $ and for the Type II conversions the price is $ We ll tell you, these two are a lot of gun for the money.

19 ARMED PATRIOT DRONE T-SHIRTS C. Sharps Arms Armed Patriot Drone T-Shirts. Logo reads, I AM AN ARMED PATRIOT DRONE, CONTROLLED BY GOD. These Tee s are 100% cotton, available sized Medium, Large, and Extra Large. Colors, either red or blue. Price $15.00 plus postage. To get your shirt send orders to or call C. Sharps Arms, P.O. Box 885, Big Timber, MT Phone: You can also order these shirts from our web site at These new shirts do make a timely statement. Let s spread the news by declaring our loyalty and faith.

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22 A Case for the.40/50 Bottleneck By Dean Becker Let me preface this short article by saying that I only shoot patched bullets and my.40/50 BN rifle, a Shiloh Roughrider with a 26 heavy half-round barrel, has a rather tight chamber. That needs to be said just because some of the things I do and the tools I use might not work as well for other shooters. Now that my openers are out of the way, let s get on with the case forming process. Dean touches one off in the Nevada sun Forming the cases can be a lengthy task and I believe I have streamlined the job with a couple of homemade tools. This special streamlining takes the process down to about five or six steps. First, of course, is to full length size the cases. By that I mean taking new.45/70 cases and full length sizing them with a.40/50 Sharps BN sizing die. Yes, that can be considered a big step but I find it easy enough to do without the intermediate forming dies. Redding dies seem to do the best job for me but that s about all I mean to say about the dies. For brass; I ve used Remington, Star Line, Hornady, and Winchester. The headstamp I ve settled on is the Winchester because that s what comes out the best for my rifle s chamber. Remington is just a little thicker which makes it too thick in the neck for my bullets. The same goes for Star Line although that could be cured by inside neck reaming. The sized and formed cases are then in need of being shortened and that is best done after sizing the brass. Cases at this time do not need to be annealed. In fact, I find that the first three steps really work better without annealing the brass and it makes the whole job easier. (You can see a dented case on the Three good sized cases and one I couldn t save. right in the photo, actually it was creased. I tried to save it but it was too bad to resurrect.) The.40 caliber necks are a lot easier to cut straight than the.45s which is why I sized the cases down to.40/50 first. So, after sizing the cases they are taken to a lathe, as seen at the right, for shortening. This job is made easy by using a Lee Precision trim die with a shortened cutter assembly originally made for a.45/70. I turned the cutter down to.40 caliber neck size and reset the stop gauge for the rough length of the.40/50 BN case. This operation takes about 30 seconds per case and, again, this is best done with the harder brass. If the cases were annealed,

23 the cutter tends to grab at the case neck and that causes wrinkles and rougher edges. After their trip through the lathe, the cases are taken back to the bench and run through my Wilson case trimmer for their final trim. This cuts them to the proper and finished length. The holder for this was custom-made and if you get one be sure you get it for the proper size of case neck. To get it right, you should send a couple of fired cases to Wilson so they can match the case holder to the cases from your rifle s chamber. If, on the other hand, your cases are too loose in the case holder, just wrap a patch around the case before inserting it in the holder as shown in the picture. With the cases all trimmed to length, it is now time to anneal the brass. I find it is best to anneal them back to the shoulder. Following that, it s back through the sizing die for one more sizing, just to be sure of things, and then a quick chamfer at the case mouth, inside and out, before it is time to It s hard to see but there is a patch around the case in the holder load the newly formed brass. For my first loadings in newly form cases, I feel the load should be made up with one of the faster burning granulations of powder along with heavy bullets to get the cases blown out, completely filling the rifle s chamber dimensions. In my experience, the shortened.45/70 cases turn into very heavy duty brass for the.40/50 BN. They work well with the loads generally used in the little black powder bottlenecked cartridge and they are certainly worth the effort taken to make them. This shows the whole shenanigan from.45/70 case to the loaded.40/50 BN round. If you want a real friend that you can trust in Washington, get a dog. - Harry Truman

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