Gallagher .54

[Battis]

I have a repro Gallagher .54 made by Erma (West Germany). This is one of those guns that you either like or hate. I like mine alot. The barrel (reportedly made from German machine gun barrels) has a 1-18" twist. Most shooters say that you must use hard lead or you'll soon have a smoothbore. Alot of owners have them relined in .50. I've been shooting .535 roundballs in mine, and they shoot well out to about 50 yds, but after a two year search I recently bought a Rapine 540300 mold in good shape at a great price.
The brass cases ($2.25 each) are pretty much indestructible, They do not take a primer (ignition is via a musket cap on a nipple), and they do not have to be sized. You seat the bullet by hand (finger) so you can reload at the range. Closing the lever action seats the bullet deeper into the case.
I loaded up a batch of hard and soft lead with the Rapine mold (the roundballs I've been using are musket ball-soft). Using case capacity of 40 grs FFG, I can gong the gong at 100 yds just about every time (it takes about 5 minutes for the bullet to get there, though).
The key that I found to keeping the bore clean, shiny and shootable is the vegetable spray PAM (or a cheaper store version). I use a homemade paraffin/beeswax lube on the bullets, but before every shooting session I spray the PAM down the barrel, then again after every five or so shots, followed by a single cloth patch. After 35 rounds, the barrel is shiny and clean with no leading or build-up of any kind.
PAM has been very good to me.
Anyone else have one of these oddball beauties?
Shown with a Vetterli .41

[Nobade]

Those Gallaghers are very interesting rifles. I have to admit I have a certain fascination for civil war carbines recently, and someday may get myself a Smith. They're all different, all have their strengths and weaknesses, and are all interesting. I do have the twin to your Vetterli though, that is also a really neat rifle to play with and scary accurate at long range.

-Nobade

[longbow]

A friend of mine had one about 35 years ago. Don't recall make and do not know rifling twist but it shot well and was both fun and "different". I toyed with getting one but muzzleloaders were what I was in to so never did get one. Still kinda like them though.

Longbow

[Battis]

The Gallaghers were the least popular rifle of its kind "back in the day." I haven't had any problems with ignition or ejection, two common problems with the Erma repros.

I have two Vetterlis - this one was sporterized. Both are strictly BP. Another great shooter.

The Swiss made some great rifles (Schmidt Rubin 96/11 and Vetterli)

[Bent Ramrod]

I posted this on the Single Shot Rifles forum:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-Breech-Loader

Haven't tried the round ball myself, just the Sharps "Christmas Tree" boolit, cast of pure lead and lubed with mutton tallow/beeswax. The friend who sold me the carbine gave me some boolits he had cast, but they are lubed with Alox/Beeswax. I'll have to melt it off and replace it with black powder lube before I can try them.

Right now I'm making a die and plunger set that will size the swollen cases back so they don't stick in the breech part of the chamber so badly.

How's the trigger pull on yours? Mine probably weighs more than the gun.

[Battis]

Nice write-up on the Gallagher. The trigger pull isn't too bad, recoil isn't too bad either (I'm not a big recoil fan). I can't get more than 40 grs FFG in the case but that seems to be plenty. I found the Rapine 540300 mold on the N-SSA site. They show it on this Rapine chart towards the bottom:
http://www.castpics.net/subsite/CurMolds/Rapine.pdf
The .535 roundballs worked really well. I placed them at the case mouth and gave them a little tap with a mallet to seat them.
The PAM spray really keeps everything moving in mine. I only have 35 brass cases and I went through them like nothing.

[mazo kid]

I had a minty original Gallagher carbine for many years, never shot it. A friend of mine talked me out of (as he so often does!) a few years ago. Those cartridge carbines came about late in the C. W. And saw limited action....or so I have read.

[bigted]

so i gotta mention the spray PAM thing for clarification. dont know if i have heard about this before;

so you spray down the bore before the first shot ... correct? ... also you say you can shoot 5 shots without any further attention to your fouling control ... correct? ... then you spray PAM down the bore after the 5 shots followed by a clean dry patch for a sparkling clean barrel ... correct?

if all this is correct then i have a couple questions ... 1- what kind of powder in the 2F configuration do you use? ... 2- what exactly is your accuracy ... either at 50 yds or at 100 yds?

thanks for an interesting post on an interestion rifle. together with the photo's and loading info it is indeed interesting. maybe a photo of a target would be interesting as well.

[Battis]

I spray the PAM down the barrel and fire away. Five or so shots later, I tip the barrel to the ground and spray some more PAM. It's amazing what that stuff drags out of the barrel. I run a clean patch or two (dry) down the barrel, then spray again. When I'm done shooting, I run a wet soapy patch down the barrel, then some dry patches and the barrel is clean before I go home.
I usually shoot at clay birds in the dirt at 50 yds or the metal gong at 100 yds. I don't like shooting from a bench at paper targets.
I also used to spray the PAM on the cylinder pin of my Colt Paterson, a gun known for fouling and jamming. The PAM kept that cylinder going for 18 or shots or so. My Remington .44 likes it but my ROA does not. Most of my Colts don't like the PAM either.

[Bent Ramrod]

I have a couple boxes of boolits that appear to have come from the Rapine 540300 pictured in your link. My friend bought them from somewhere; they're different than the ones he cast and lubed. I'll lube some up and try them with the "thick" cases and the lower powder charge when time permits. The accuracy potential of the Gallagher seems pretty high, but of course the boolit has to fit the barrel. And yes, as a bench gun it will bring tears to your eyes with heavy loadings.

That PAM trick sounds intriguing; I have a partial can and will give it a try sometime. But so far ten good breaths with the blow tube seems to soften the mixture of fouling and lube enough to keep it shooting. The barrel cleans up pretty quickly with Ballistol/water and Ballistol as a final wipe. The real labor is cleaning the rest of the gun. That smoke gets into and onto everything.

[TommyT]

I've owned an Erma Gallagher since about 1992. I used it for many years in competition in the N-SSA. That little carbine won many awards for me. I bought the Rapine mold at the same time when Ray was still making them. My match load was 28 grains of 3F Goex topped off with cornmeal. I dipped the base of the little 300 grain bullet in my BP lube and seated it in the case. I had the opportunity to meet one of the men that worked for Erma on the Gallagher line. He told me they did indeed use old MG barrels. He also told me that Erma only built 2000 carbines and enough parts to make anther 1000. I still have this carbine and shoot it for fun to this day. I was lucky enough to buy 200 brass cases while they were cheap in the '90's.

[toot]

Battis, thank you so much for posting me the MOLD CHART. I have to find a .530-300. MOLD.

[Battis]

Actually, the .535 roundballs worked as well as the bullets from the Rapine mold.

[yeahbub]

Back in the late 70's, I knew a fellow in the N-SSA who had one. I was hot to get one myself, but they were already no longer available. Seems somewhere I read that cartridges of varying internal volume were available lathe turned from Delrin or some stout plastic to improve ease of extraction. The N-SSA guy had a lot of trouble getting the brass cases out of the chamber on his.

[John in PA]

I had one back in the late 70's-early 80's. I was friends with Wolf Droege at Shiloh Rifle Co. when they were in Farmingdale NY. I sent my Gallagher lockplate, hammer, receiver, and lever to Wolf to get him to toss them in the next batch of parts to be color casehardened. Never shot it much, sold it at the Allentown Gun Show in like new condition probably 35-40 years ago. So if you run across one that is color-cased, it's my old one.

[samari46]

John, if you met Wolfgang Droege when he was doing the Farmingdale Sharps you may have met his gunsmith. First name was Fred and he used to work for a gun store in Flushing,NY. About 6' or so tall and lanky. Funny in all the years I knew him never knew his last name. Frank

[John in PA]

John, if you met Wolfgang Droege when he was doing the Farmingdale Sharps you may have met his gunsmith. First name was Fred and he used to work for a gun store in Flushing,NY. About 6' or so tall and lanky. Funny in all the years I knew him never knew his last name. Frank

I don't recall Fred, but I didn't get out on the production floor too much. My wife's family lived in Red Bank NJ. Most every time we'd visit way back then, I'd use it as an excuse to make a side trip up to Shiloh to see what was going on. I knew Mark, Wolf's son, before he got the brain tumor that ultimately took his life as a young man. We visited them out in Montana after they had sold Shiloh to the Bryans, and later, when Wolf decided to sell off his personal collection, I arranged a visit for him at the N-SSA Nationals in Winchester VA. The gang there was really thrilled to meet him, and his guns sold out rather quickly. Great guy, extremely talented machinist. RIP.

Wolf made 2 identical .54 cal. 1863 Sharps Gemmers, one for himself and one as a gift for Val Forgett, founder and owner of Navy Arms Co. Val had been very helpful in advising Wolf when they were getting into gun manufacturing, and they became long-time friends. He said they were the only two he ever made in that exact configuration. When Val thinned his collection a few years before he passed away, I managed to snag his custom Shiloh Gemmer at an auction in VA. It's a beauty. Wolf still had his at the time, and was disappointed that Val parted with it , but was glad he knew where it ended up.

[samari46]

John, there is a picture of FRED in one of the Gun Digests can't recall the year of issue. Fred moved back to Long Island and went to work for Leslie Edelman who had one large gun store in Farmingdale and in later years I think they had another in Heampsted, Don't remember the exact locatation. Edelmans was in business for many years and the store was always especially on weekends. Then I heard from one of their employees that it was going to close lock,stock,and barrel. Poof,two weeks later and they were gone. Frank