The Gun Gods have been good to me over the last few months, and I managed to find another "Bucket List" gun. Actually, that is not all true. I have been bugging a friend of mine to sell me his 1878 Sharps-Borchardt chambered for a 219 Donaldson Wasp for the past five or so years. We had started a conversation about the Wasp, and I told him that I had one in a Custom Contender that Fred Smith of Bullberry had made for me and that I really liked the cartridge. He stated that he had a Sharps in the same caliber, and I've been bugging him ever since, even though I had never laid eyes on it.
Well, he final decided to sell it and asked me to meet him at the range to look it over. I met him at the range, and he was kind enough to bring some loaded ammo to try it out. Once I laid eyes on it, I knew that it was going to be mine!
First off let me say that the 219 Donaldson Wasp is one of my favorite cartridges and considered by many to be the "Grandfather" of benchrest cartridges. There are many ways to form the brass but the easiest (for me) was to buy some 7mm US brass from EABCO (it was a proprietary cartridge years ago based on the Wasp) and just run it through a FL sizing die. My little Contender rifle gave me 3/4" groups at 100 yds. consistently with about everything that I fed it.
The Sharps was a converted 1878 rifle with a 4-digit serial number. The records for the manufacture date or type of original rifle are long gone, but I would guess the manufacturing date to be around 1880-1881 based on the serial number and the fact that only 22,000 were ever produced. I noticed while inspecting it that the barrel was engraved with "Pfiefer Rifle Co. Roscoe, CA". Overall the gun was in fantastic shape! It had a 6X Unertl Small Game scope attached to it with a crosshair/dot reticle, and although there were a couple of minor spots of rust it was in immaculate shape.
A quick side note, the Pfiefer Rifle Company was one of the premier gun shops in the late 50's early 60's. Joe Pfeifer who owned the shop was renowned for his accurate barrels and accurate rifles. His Chief Stock maker was D.M. (Monte) Kennedy who would go on to his own fame and fortune.
I popped the action open and loaded her up. I took two shots to warm the barrel up and check zero, then fired a 3 shot group. After the last shot was fired I turned to my friend and told him that the rifle was sold.
So, in closing, I have a 1878 Sharps-Borchardt made by a renowned (at the time) Gunshop, that is probably but cannot be proven was stocked by Monte Kennedy and which shoots great groups in a caliber that I really like. By the way, the deal also included 300 loaded cartridges, 100 formed cases, a Hollywood press and form and loading dies. I won't mention the price because you would NOT believe what I paid for it!
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