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Thread: Accuracy of the sharps rifles and skill of the hunters in 1874

  1. #41
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Absolutely competitive shooting is not a cheap thing
    I have a trap shotgun that cost me pretty close to what most of my Shilohs with the sight cost
    A tricked out comp ready 1911 will run dang near what a shiloh cost and then after you add the red dots and the rest of the gear ...
    The cost of some going to some matches can be quite high so I usually figure the cost of going staying and divide by the number of rounds for score, but some matches there can be some tourists stuff along the way to help justify the cost
    But it still beats 5 grand to go sit on a beach with 1000 other people for 3 days lol


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    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Don McDowell View Post
    Interesting that when the NY Rifle Club answered the challenge from the Irish and British Rifle teams, there was no shooters on the east coast that had much of any experience in long range shooting. They and the NRA came west and tried their best to recruit shooters from the Hide trade, not a one of them was interested and stayed on the plains until they either went broke or quit to go on to do something else.
    Remington and Sharps pooled together, built special rifles and ammunition and started outfitting and training shooters for the match. The teams from across the Atlantic showed up with their muzzleloaders, some took the US made rifles home with them that time, and by the end of the "Creedmoor" era very few were shooting muzzle loaders, and gun builders such as Rigby were franticly trying to replicate the rifles of the American team that were so handily winning the matches.
    In todays world of shooting it's amazing how few shooters are taught to shoot with irons, and now there's a multimillion dollar industry built around a shooting venue, where actual field positions are not used, and the rifles are equipped with telescopic sights that do about 90% of the work for the shooter. When is the last time one of the "hunters" on the cable infomercial channels actually shot a game animal with a hand carried adjustable tripod, instead of from the sitting, kneeling or prone postition, or using a field position?
    A lot of myth's just seem to live on and on and on.....
    I was one of them never taught to shoot iron sights - my people were shotgunners, me dad was a handy B grader and collected a good number of single barrel trophys - mum made the ladies team in trap for the oceania games - none of which helped me at all - that game was way too expensive for me even if I had liked it .
    I was 41 when I went off on my blackpowder / muzzleloader trip. Had shot scope sighted rifles for anything serious and wasted a lot of ammo trying to learn tricks with open sighted lever guns - I bought Sam Fadalas blackpowder handbook and there it was in black and white - this is so simple why didnt someone tell me ! My eyes were never the best and all that time I blamed poor eyesight for all the other stuff I was doing wrong. I am 73 and dont burn enough powder these days, can still shoot iron sights better than when I was 25 - that is a dad gum shame I reckon!!!!!!!!

  3. #43
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Don McDowell View Post
    I sort of chuckle when some one says something like this. For less than the cost of the scopes PRC shooters are putting on 4000$ rifles you can have a Shiloh or CSA ready to go.
    I shot for years in IDPA and USPSA using iron sighted pistol without compensators, not terribly expensive and little need to travel overnight. And yes, if I put off a couple of my typical gun purchases I could afford a nice rolling block or trapdoor, they are just more than I usually spend at one time. Did not mean to be critical.

  4. #44
    Boolit Grand Master

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    At one time DCM CMP matches could be shot fairly reasonable. rifles were supplied ammo supplied was like $25.00 to enter. But those days are over. I started ISPC with stock guns and Bowling pins. Then moved to High power rifle matches.When the MS got worse moved to BPCR silhouette local only. Competing is expensive I was lucky in most of the "tricks and Tune ups " I could do myself. This saved some.

    A good example of the competitor mindset now is the garand matches, supposed to be a rack grade gun right. but competitors will swap barrels trigger groupsparts and stocks to get the best performing they can. All rack grade parts but far from rack grade. M1As were the same lugs welded on gas systems unitized bolted in the stocks heavy stocks. ARs also have a lot of mods to be "competitive" The small bore matches now are even worse a expensive rifle and scope just to start. testing high dollar ammo .

    While a lot try to buy the matches there does have to be some skill and knowledge with the shooter also. We have all seen the shooters who do well with whatever is put in their hands. These people are hard to beat.

    Another good example is the Pedersoli line of rifles. Not to long ago they were around $1000.00 a little under when on sale ( I bought mine around 2003 for 899.00 on sale at cabellas). Now with the good reviews and reputation they are getting close to a CSA or Shiloh Sharps in price.

  5. #45
    Boolit Grand Master Don McDowell's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cosmic_Charlie View Post
    I shot for years in IDPA and USPSA using iron sighted pistol without compensators, not terribly expensive and little need to travel overnight. And yes, if I put off a couple of my typical gun purchases I could afford a nice rolling block or trapdoor, they are just more than I usually spend at one time. Did not mean to be critical.
    Certainly no offense taken by me.
    Long range rules, the rest drool.

  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by FLINTNFIRE View Post
    In reading on it I have seen where Sharps loaded 100 grains of powder in what is referred to as the 50-90 , but some of those men and women of that era were quite the shots , as to those hunters being whatever a marksman is today , in the trade they were in they did a lot of shooting and probably were better then some who pride themselves on their abilities today .

    The one shooting feat that tends to put some things in perspective is the Farr story with the open sights on a 1903 .

    And remember there were those long range teams that were still shooting the muzzle loaders remember Creedmoor .
    Yes they did with a 473 gr pp bullet. Not the fluff fantasy crap in this book.

    Kenny Wasserburger

  7. #47
    Boolit Man R-71's Avatar
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    I have read that the 473 PP bullet was loaded for Sharps with 100 grains of powder and the GG bullet with 90 grains. I've tried some 485 grain PP bullets in my Modern made C. Sharps and the shoot quite a bit higher at 200 yards than my usual 600 Grain bullet.

    The accounts of I've read of the Dixon shot was that he lost his personal rifle in a river while making his way back to Adobe walls. He purchased a new rifle but that was in different building which he couldn't get to and borrowed the 50 that he used for the remainder of the battle.

    I use a Lawrence rear sight on my 50 and the 200 & 300 yard leaf is nearly dead on at those ranges shooting just a little high using a 6 o'clock hold.

  8. #48
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    Whether or not the stories and claims are true, I couldn't say. But I am glad the stories are out there to interest whoever reads them. Without stories like this to get people interested, we may not have all the current black powder guns and equipment available that we have today. But I do believe that these shots could have been made. Some of those professional hunters probably made more shots in 1 day than some do in a week or a month of shooting. I would think that they would have been some riflemen.

  9. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by hawkenhunter50 View Post
    Whether or not the stories and claims are true, I couldn't say. But I am glad the stories are out there to interest whoever reads them. Without stories like this to get people interested, we may not have all the current black powder guns and equipment available that we have today. But I do believe that these shots could have been made. Some of those professional hunters probably made more shots in 1 day than some do in a week or a month of shooting. I would think that they would have been some riflemen.
    Very, very true. Thanks for that thought! It is inspring and certainly something fun to dream about doing. And yes, regardless of equipment quality I bet they were really good. Shooting 3000+ buff in a month? That is a lot of shooting.

  10. #50
    Boolit Master
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    Things might seem further away than they really are with no guides for reference.
    And fish and game killed by your grandfather was way bigger than they are now

    Take the "famous" Quigley down under shot:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB1xlpxOQNs

    Not as far as you thought!

  11. #51
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    That same year (1874) or maybe the next a US Army Survey team measured the distance from the Adobe Walls building where Dixon fired his shot to the top of the bluff where the Indian was knocked from his horse as being 1538 yards or 7/8 of a mile. A paper published in 1988 titled "A Trajectory Analysis of Billy Dixon's Long Shot" did a topographical analysis of the features (historic marker for the building and the top of the ridge line) and came up with what they called "essentially the same distance", 1538 yards.

    Dixon lost his beloved Big 50 Sharps (which was introduced in 1872 in the new Sharps cartridge rifle that would later be called the Model of 1874) while on his way to Adobe Walls with a wagon load of hides and his equipment. The wagon turned over crossing a river and he lost everything. When he got to the trading post and tried to buy another 50 2-1/2" Sharps Straight (the name Sharps gave the "Big 50") the Adobe Walls trading post didn't have one. The most powerful gun they had was a 44-90 so he bought that and a case of ammunition. When the Indians attacked Dixon was in one building and his case of ammo was in another. Once he expended the 44-90 ammunition he had with him he was out of business until another man handed Dixon his own Big 50 saying Billy was a better shot than he was. That borrowed gun, a model and caliber Dixon was very familiar with, was the rifle with which he made the so called Mile Long Shot - as explained above actually 7/8s of a mile.

    Dave

    PS: Dixon always claimed it was a scratch shot, i.e. just lucky.
    Last edited by Dave T; 01-03-2022 at 12:45 PM.

  12. #52
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    https://powderburns.tripod.com/sharps.html


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  13. #53
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by MichaelR View Post
    The buffalo hunters cast their bullets over an open fire often from pure lead. Not a recipe for match grade bullets. Most of the sharps hunting bullets were about 1.1” long and very blunt. They did not weigh their powder charges, they scooped them with a measure out of a keg of powder. They they used tallow hardened in the bottom of a frying pan to make lube wads to allow multiple shots to be fired without fouling control. Their loading tools were very limited and crude compared to todays tools. My research indicates that they probably got about 4 MOA accuracy. Plenty good to be reliable to 400 yards and maybe more on buffalo. I have shot man sized targets at 1200 yards, measured. To think that a hunter using a dirty rifle to engage a man at an unknown distance around 1300 yards distance is laughable. Yes, Billy Dixon made the shot. Used a borrowed rifle that had a blade front and a rear ladder sight on the barrel. By luck he got the elevation correct but he had some help of the wind drift/spin drift problem. He shot at seven warriors seated on horses in a line giving him a lot of latitude on windage. Billy Dixon himself says it was just a lucky shot.
    One thing we must remember about these old cartridges is that, by modern standards, they were BIG. These were not little .22 Hornets that you had to sweat the uniformity of your powder charges or bullet weights in tenths of grains. Being "a little bit off" in whatever you used for powder measuring, or in your standards for a "perfect" bullet would make for a lower percentage of deviation from the ideal round than it would in our modern descendants of the 7x57 and .300 H&H.

    Given that Dixon was using a borrowed gun, and likely gave it back shortly thereafter, odds of even him properly recalling what the caliber was seem pretty slim. Assuming a 4MOA combo of gun and ammo, that's a potential for 60 inch groups at 1500 yards. Even if we double that, the bullet is still crossing SOMEWHERE through a ten foot circle, which is roughly the height/width dimensions of a guy on a horse. While the rate of fire is obviously lower, this isn't any different a problem than that faced by machine gunners in WWI - they knew there bullets were going to beat up a given area, and it made for an effective solution.

    A. I don't see anything impossible about Dixon's shot.

    B. The odds of connecting are not so slim that it wouldn't be foolish to take a poke at a bunch of guys who came to kill you. Keeps 'em honest, if nothing else.
    WWJMBD?

    In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.

  14. #54
    Boolit Master


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    In the immortal words of General John Sedgwick. "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." I have to believe that it is best not to underestimate a large lead bullet at extended ranges. Happy New Year to all!
    “Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
    ― Mark Twain
    W8SOB

  15. #55
    Boolit Master

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    The Buffalo Harvest by Frank Mayer (my favorite)

    https://www.amazon.com/buffalo-harve...s%2C185&sr=8-1


    In Search of the Buffalo by Charles Anderson

    https://www.amazon.com/SEARCH-BUFFAL...s%2C180&sr=8-1

  16. #56
    Boolit Master
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    they must have acquired the skill by the thousands of them that they slaughtered.

  17. #57
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    That was it. They liked to shoot, after the Civil War they were bored with the farm or the clerk’s job and up for anything that seemed like an adventure, and they learned by doing.

    I forget the reference, but the author mentioned that the “true sportsmen” and the market hunters of the time were truly fantastic shots, but their learning curve was, admittedly, “hard on the game.” Probably the understatement of the 19th Century.

  18. #58
    Boolit Grand Master

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    As an experiment I cast and loaded ammo in camp over the campfire for my 45-100 Sharps. I used an old Ideal tool to seat primers and a copy of a military loading kit. I then shot the rifle for groups with loads I had done at hoe with all the bells and whistles. The campfire groups ran 2-3 inches larger than the shop made ammo out to 300 yards. For example at 100 yards my campfire groups were 3-4 inches and the home loads were on average 1 1/2 inches. If you really want to know how good the Sharps was just read the match results from the 1870's. There it is in black and white at 1000 yards a 3foot group would have beem a winner and Billy Dixon himself said the hit was a lucky shot.

  19. #59
    Boolit Grand Master

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    The way a market hunter got paid was thru the hides and meat for towns forts and such. So if he wanted paid he had to "put hides and meat" in the wagon. This was a business more so than hunting. repetition and practice whether in the job or at home speeds up improves the performance.

    You still see this in factories today, the new worker on the line needs help the first week or two, then he can keep up but struggles, then hes able to do other small things like take a drink or talk to someone while working and then he reading a book between parts. the repetition and repeated movements take over and he can do his job even faster. These old hunters were just doing what they had learned and practiced for years.

  20. #60
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    Adobe Walls is the name of the place were buffalo hunters and the Indians clashed. The hunters were deep into Indian territory where they were told not to go. I believe Bat Masterson was among the group of hunters. Elmer Keith said in his book that he had gone to visit Billy Dixon's widow and had bought Billy's rifle. I don't remember if he mentioned the caliber or not and I no longer have Ketih's book. One of my biggest regrets is not buying an old Remington hunting rifle. It was well used but not rusty and had a heavy octagon barrel marked 44 cal. The man was asking a big 40 bucks for it. I was not into single shot rifles at that time. I think it was around 1971.
    A GUN THAT'S COCKED AND UNLOADED AIN'T GOOD FOR NUTHIN'........... ROOSTER COGBURN

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