Paper cartrige Sharps

[Fly]

Fellows I have read the 1863 paper cartrige Sharps are not as accerate as
the newer brass cartrige ones.Is this true?

The other question on these is, can you load them with just powder, instead
of making up a paper cartrige.

Fly:coffeecom

[lbaize3]

I loaded nitrated paper cartridges and both lead bullets and balls. Played with it a lot and then sold it. And yes, you can load the gun without the paper. Simply hold the rifle muzzle down and push the ball into the rifling and then pour black powder into the chamber until it is slightly over full. Close the block, cap the gun and fire.

[Tatume]

Are these non-FFL guns?

[Fly]

Well I think you guy's have about talked me out of the paper patched Sharps.The Sharp rifle
has alway's been a dream to me for it's accuracy.I could never put smokless powder in
any BP rifle.

Reading this form it seems to be the norm in the cartridge Sharps.To each there own & I could
never do that.Don't get me wrong, it's just me & my thinking.I have many ww2 rifles that
can shoot as accurate long distance that cost a fraction the $.

I may be better off with a Perdersoli Gibb's or a Euro whitworth for my long distance BP shooting.

Thank you guys for all your insight.
Fly

[NickSS]

I have owned several percussion sharps rifles and enjoy shooting them. All of them are 54 caliber and shoot about as well as the sights they come with will allow. Most of them come with poor replicas of antique sights and I defy anyone to shoot really small groups with them. However, I have owned a Pedersoli rifle that I put good sights on and it had a 32 inch barrel so I had good sight radius (something you do not have with a carbine). That rifle would shoot about as good at 200 yards as either my 50-70 sharps or 45-70 sharps at the same range. Beyond 200 yards it fell off compared to the the cartridge rifles but mostly because of the relatively short stubby bullets used. All things being equal I believe that they shoot as well as a cartridge one but not as far. They are also more work to make cartridges for and clean than a cartridge sharps is due to have ing to disassemble the breach block for cleaning each time you shoot it. Overall they are a lot of fun to shoot and will do a fine job deer hunting but they are not long range competition rifles. They do not have to go through an FFL dealer.

[63 Shiloh]

Hey Fly,

As my handle suggests, I own a Sharps Shiloh 1863 Sporter, .54 cal, 30" barrel, patch box, single trigger and Lawrence barrel sights.

I believe the brass cases you refer to are the ones offered by Pedersoli, they are a thick brass shell with a small hole in the bottom for the powder to ignite.

I have some and load as follows: place a small square of tissue paper in the bottom of the case hard against the 'primer hole', fill with FF/FFFG and use white glue to seat a ringtail style boolit to the case mouth. My cases hold 68gn of BP.

Place assembled cartridge into breech and fire, as there is no extractor, you need a piece of wire with a bend in it to manually extract the case.

After all this, I have come to the conclusion that paper cartridges, or, especially a stiff cardboard tube, are the best for ease and accuracy. The tubes are made by a bloke called Charlie Hahn. Charlie can be found on the Shiloh forum.

Loose seating a boolit is very easy too, although my Sharps was made in Farmingdale and has a very generous chamber! With a boolit seated in the rifling the chamber holds 110gn of FFFg!

Check out 'Charlies Tubes' mate, very convenient and are cut to your chamber size.

I love this rifle and the fun that goes with the whole process, if you have any other questions I would be more than happy to answer, just PM me.



Mike

[Nobade]

I don't have one yet, but would love to someday. From what I read, the sporting caliber '63 rifles by Shiloh (45, 50, etc.) don't give up anything to the metallic cartridge ones at normal ranges. You'll never see them winning creedmoor matches, but out to 300 yards or so they're no slouch. The thing is there are a lot of manufacturers making '63 replicas and most aren't worth having. The Pedersolis have a good barrel but the breech block design isn't correct and they lock up easily. Charlie Hahn above can fix that. But the sliding chamber they have isn't so easily fixed. The Shiloh is made correctly and is the one to have, especially now that the dollar is so weak compared to the Euro making the Italian guns about as expensive. The other makers should be kept well away from, unless you want to do a lot of work to make them function. Like I said, I don't have one yet, though have shot them quite a bit in various flavors. I really need two, a military carbine for hunting and a sporting rifle with nice sights for target and playing. Aah, someday...

[NickSS]

I agree about the Pedersoli 1863s being a poor design. They changed the gas check on the breach and added the sliding chamber sleeve. I had a gun smith remove the sleeve and make one in two pieces that fit together with a male female relationship and an O ring at the joint. This made it work better but it still jammed up with fouling pretty fast. The Pedersolli breach block gas check is also a poorly designed and it gets gas cut in only a few hundred rounds. I have a carbine made by IAB which is a poor excuss for a rifle but it has the original sharps style gas check on the breach block. I have over 500 rounds through it and it is still going strong. I changed out 4 gas checks on my pedersolli in less than 500 rounds. I finally sold the pedersolli at a loss just to get rid of it.