Original Sharps ####.......

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Win Shooter

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I recently had a chance to get one of these girls shooting; it's gonna let the air out of a moose this fall, I hope.:)
What you're looking at is #3 mid range target rifle, .44 cal, made in 1876.....1 of only 4 made. I took the time to get a proper bullet mold, patch papers, and brass and did a lot of experimenting with duplex loads, straight black powder, and even smokeless with varying degrees of success.
Guns like these are usually kept out of sight by the investor/collector and when the opportunity presented itself I leapt at it.

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Very nice, thats a Beauty :)

I should have another 50 70 carbine in my mail box tomorrow.
Orignal Sharps are fantastic rifles.
 
That is a beautiful piece of work. Looks like it's in amazing shape too.

How hard is it to get brass for?

I saw a nice .44-77 Creedmoor rolling block at the Chilliwack show recently. Also beautiful.:D

Chris.
 
I have to confess that the rifle is not mine... yet:( I have offered up a kidney and a lobe of my liver and waiting to hear back from him:p
I have had the rifle on and off for the last year playing with the load development so I felt I own it without paying for it:) The owner has offered to let me use it when ever the urge arrises, he's a stand up guy! He has a business rifle on the way so maybe some more play time in the future :)

For brass I have used un-altered 43 Mauser or Buffalo arms stretched .348 Win brass. I prefer to use the .348 brass over the Mauser for it lasts longer and with the black or duplex loads it compresses more or don't need to use fillers.
The 3 loads I settled on were;

75grs. of FF black,
5 grs. of SR 4759 sitting under 60grs. of FF black and
22grs of A2400 for a short range plinking round.

Federal 215 and CCI 250 primers were used. I used a original round as a guide for over all length, so nothing really ground breaking there.

The bullet for these loads was a 40:1 mix weighing in at 405grs. .440 dia. The paper is some of the last run of patch paper produced which came from down south.

I found the duplex to be a little more accurate but kick a little more than the 75grs. of straight black, the 75grs of black does shoot a little higher though but in all cases the brass popped out easily with no issues.

One thing I did notice is that after 6 or so shots the chamber would require cleaning for the paper on the next round would hang up on the fouling and make chambering tight to nearly impossible. This I have found out is not uncommon with bottle neck cases.

Oh, and the velocity of the duplex load averages 1280 FPS
 
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The caliber is .44, so 44-77. I don't think it's early enough to be 44-75 but I think the jump to 77 was with the introduction of UMC brass which allowed for the 2grs. increase of powder. I could be wrong on this so please correct me if I am.
Barrel length is 30 inches and is nearly mint and has a few special order items like checkered trigger, shotgun butt (I think) and maybe the checkering on the stocks, but this is from memory and could be wrong.
The tang and ladder sights are correct but as for all the pertinent info that's with the owner for he has researched the gun and has the all the relevant info.
When I first layed eyes on her and ask if it ever came up for sale what would it set me back, he pointed to another one for sale down south with a little better condition but not with some of the special features...sticker shock was an understatement!
 
Whoa! Very nice! You are very fortunate to be able to hunt with an old timer like that. It makes hunting and shooting extra-enjoyable.
 
most puzzling because the 11mm mauser shell has a much smaller base than the 348. I would not think they would be interchangeable in making brass. The 44-77 has a base of .516 and the gun should not chamber a modified 348 shell with a base of .553 according to Cartridges of the World.
Your posting is interesting though because I have a Sharps 44-60 to rebuild and was wondering how I could form the cases. Never thought of checking the 11mm mauser dimensions

cheers mooncoon
 
mooncoon said:
most puzzling because the 11mm mauser shell has a much smaller base than the 348. I would not think they would be interchangeable in making brass. The 44-77 has a base of .516 and the gun should not chamber a modified 348 shell with a base of .553 according to Cartridges of the World.
Your posting is interesting though because I have a Sharps 44-60 to rebuild and was wondering how I could form the cases. Never thought of checking the 11mm mauser dimensions

cheers mooncoon
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The .348 brass has had what I would call a little ".43 Mauser head beveling" done to it. In this process they might have reduced the rim diameter a little as well. Will measure the specimens up next time I am there. I would assume the critical part of the different brass is the base of the tube diameter. If the rim is a little small but the extractor is still able to do its job then all's good;)
 
Win Shooter said:
I would assume the critical part of the different brass is the base of the tube diameter. If the rim is a little small but the extractor is still able to do its job then all's good;)
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That is my point; there is a considerable difference in diameter between the .348 base (not rim) and the 43 mauser rim

cheers mooncoon
 
mooncoon said:
That is my point; there is a considerable difference in diameter between the .348 base (not rim) and the 43 mauser rim

cheers mooncoon
Click to expand...

They must have swaged the body down when forming the brass for the 2 were virtually the same before first firings. Even the shoulder was in the right place as opposed to the mauser brass which had the shoulder pushed up on first firing.
 
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