JMtoolman
04-12-2016, 01:20 PM
I picked up a battered Sharps carbine a coulple of months ago and have been collecting the parts to make it shoot again. Yesterday I pulled the barrel off so that I could lap the bore of the rust and stuff scattered through out the barrel. I was very surprised to find traces of a pin through the chamber. It traversed the bore at about 4:00 to 7:00 and was about 3/16 of an inch in diameter. This was very old for the ends were very hard to see with the oxide on the barrel. I looked inside of the chamber and sure enough there were the ends of the pin cut off in the chamber. I kind of shuddered because I had shot about thirty rounds down the pipe with valve grinding paste in the lube on the bullets. Granted they were very low pressure rounds, and I wanted to knock some of the rust off of the high spots to get a better idea of how bad the bore really was. I think I was very lucky to have both arms and eyes still in my head! So now my only recourse is to find a 50-70 blank and match the original barrel. I can't understand why someone ran a drill through the barrel. Then someone else probably plugged the chamber and sent it on down the pike. I had thought of just relining the bore and rechambering but the weakness of the area of the pins would still bother me. It is really too bad for the barrel is serial numbered to the frame. Any one have an old 50-70 barrel removed from a Sharps to rebarrel it? Even one with a poor bore could be relined. Sorry for the rant, best regards, the toolman.