Sharps firing pin

[mooncoon]

Somehow I let myself get talked into making a firing pin for a Farmingdale Sharps rifle; partly a friend of a friend and partly looked at it as a challenge. The pin surely has to be one of the most difficult projects I have ever taken on and ultimately took 8 - 10 hours. Seems like there is hardly an angle or a dimension that is not either critical or nearly so. The round part of the pin, I milled into place with hollow end mills. Never again ---- argggh
Worth noting that the pin is virtually identical to the one on an original Sharps.

cheers mooncoon

 

[orgrabbit]

You got more nerve then a toothache to tackle such a job. Great work btw.

 

[mooncoon]

The one significant screw up on it is that sort of stepped side to the vertical portion in the first photo. It is supposed to be a smooth straight vertical surface but fortunately that is one of the few spots where the dimension is more cosmetic and absolutely necessary

cheers mooncoon

 

[dingus]

Oh Man i can Appreciate how hard that was to make.

Good work tho.
speaking of hard to make things, I swear i will never make another Colt Thunder hand spring either.
tho that looks alot harder to make.

 

[H Wally]

I'm very very very very impressed. Looks like a royal bugger to do!

 

[mooncoon]

speaking of hard to make things, I swear i will never make another Colt Thunder hand spring either.

the Thunder spring defeated me although I had nothing to copy. Even fitting the store bought parts into a Thunderer are a major pain in the bum and I still have not got mine shooting single action

cheers mooncoon

 

[dingus]

the Thunder spring defeated me although I had nothing to copy. Even fitting the store bought parts into a Thunderer are a major pain in the bum and I still have not got mine shooting single action

cheers mooncoon

You woulda had no troble if you had a broken one to copy as i did, Still it was a bugger to make and install.
Looking at that Fireing pin you made now thats hard to make.

 

[Short Knife Johnson]

I think if you phone Shiloh Rifle, they will sell you one for considerably less than the 8 hours worth of time it took.

Not to take away from the nice job you did though.

 

[wade]

doug, the truth is you must send the breech block to shiloh to be fitted with thier new style firing pin, i have seen the two piece replacement for the one you show, and my shiloh still has the origional one piece,i phoned shiloh and wanted to upgrade , they said send it in ,,,wade

 

[mooncoon]

I think if you phone Shiloh Rifle, they will sell you one for considerably less than the 8 hours worth of time it took.

The reason that I made it was that they are no longer made. This particular gun was a Farmingdale gun rather than from Big Timbers and they had a reputation for breaking pins. I believe the design of the pin has been changed to eliminate or reduce breakage and the pin tip diameter has been reduced to permit smokeless loads. The gun owner told me that the current solution is to replace the breach block and to use the modern pin design. He did not want to do that, in part because the Farmingdale guns are exact duplicates of the originals. Enough so that I fitted the new pin to my made in 1878 breach block.
If they were readily available, the owner would have bought one without hesitation.

cheers mooncoon

 

[Short Knife Johnson]

Oh right, sorry, my bad.

 

[mooncoon]

doug, the truth is you must send the breech block to shiloh to be fitted with their new style firing pin, i have seen the two piece replacement for the one you show, and my shiloh still has the original one piece,i phoned shiloh and wanted to upgrade , they said send it in ,,,wade

The fellow that owns the gun was aware of that option but wanted to retain the old style pin. I think that if I had realized just how difficult it would be for me to make the pin, I probably would not have started. I suspect that even a skilled machinist would take 3 or 4 hours to make one.
It does raise the question of how were the originals made? The Farmingdale pins are precision cast from I believe 8620 steel which is low in carbon and high in manganese, nickel and chrome if my memory is correct. I think the originals must have been forged into a mold in order to make them fast enough. Even though Sharps were expensive rifles, I don't believe the pins could have been individually machined.

cheers mooncoon

 

[A-zone]

Pretty impressive piece of work!

 

[cheetah_frodo]

Well done Doug, that looks like a real pig! I am making a couple of main springs for Cat-in-the-Hat's Mowery with just the broken one to copy, it would be SO much easier if I had the piece to fit a spring to. .Hope you're not in a rush for your mould, I have not yet extracted the appropriate digit and cast up a bunch. How is Robogirl?

 

[Short Knife Johnson]

The fellow that owns the gun was aware of that option but wanted to retain the old style pin. I think that if I had realized just how difficult it would be for me to make the pin, I probably would not have started. I suspect that even a skilled machinist would take 3 or 4 hours to make one.
It does raise the question of how were the originals made? The Farmingdale pins are precision cast from I believe 8620 steel which is low in carbon and high in manganese, nickel and chrome if my memory is correct. I think the originals must have been forged into a mold in order to make them fast enough. Even though Sharps were expensive rifles, I don't believe the pins could have been individually machined.

cheers mooncoon

When you think about it, when you compare buying a modern Shiloh made in Big Timber with today's wages versus a Sharps made in Bridgeport Conneticut in 1878 with the wages of the day, the prices are very comparable. The Hartford I have ordered will run me around $3300 CDN by the time I get it here. Nothing special. To buy a similar rifle according to the repro 1880 catalogue I have, that same rifle would be around $29. The average wage of the day to my understanding was around was $1.10 per day. Sharps Rifle Company paid skilled labourers $3.25 per day to fit triggers. Its kind of a wash, but if you want to pick nits, they are more expensive today, for one simple reason. Taxes.

When you earned that $1.10 per day, it was yours, when you bought something, there was no sales tax. No excise taxes, or tax tax. Back then, they were not just a toy as they are now. You purchase done of these fine rifles to hunt professionally. So it was a business expense.

Ammo costs were huge then though. $2.50 for a 1000 primers. Anywhere from $10 to $13 for 1000 bullets depending on calibre and if you wanted them pre-patched. Ouch!

Point is, in times past, technology used to be expensive and labour was cheap. You see that in much older buildings, stone fences and walls, etc... A complete reversal has happened. Now technology is cheap (CNC machines and air nailers), and labour is expensive (Unions, lazyasses, and meat puppets - my new favourite). It's all relative.

 

[mooncoon]

Point is, in times past, technology used to be expensive and labour was cheap.

I don't disagree with your basic point that labour was cheap but relying heavily or exclusively on hand work means things cost more and are not completely replicable and interchangeable. The pin that I made was almost completely interchangeable with the one in my own gun made in roughly 1878.

I think a lot of intricate pieces, we think of as being filed out by hand were actually forged into molds and then finished by hand. If you check in the Journal of Historical Arms Making Technology, you will find a description of making molds for forging the lock parts for muzzle loaders; sideplates, hammers, tumblers and bridles. Still required skilled hand work but removed hours of the tedious rough work. I strongly suspect that Sharps firing pins were made that way; one or two wacks with a trip hammer could eliminate 5 or 6 hours of rough forming. I am virtually positive the hammers and tumblers were made that way.
I don't think most parts were cast because I don't think that small scale precision casting was well developed at that time.

cheers mooncoon

 

[tiriaq]

Forging into dies was a standard procedure. Still is. A formed, contoured blank is a better start than a block of steel.
Precision casting of alloy steel is a relatively recent development. In the 19th century, there were cast iron and cast semi-steel parts - look at all the receivers made this way. But these pieces were sand cast, and then machined.
Early interchangeable parts were made by filing the piece against jigs.
It was the clock and watchmaking industry that really developed the mass production of small, interchangeable metal parts, followed by the arms industry.