Just strolling through the fun show....

Dave951

Dave951

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So I decided to go ahead and walk through the crappy gun show in Winston last weekend. The pollution levels of cheap knives, jerky and junk have risen to about 30% making this a marginal show. After looking at all the pewpew stuff, I found a guy with some interesting stuff. He was selling loaded ammo for black powder guns like 45/70,90,110, 50/70,90,110, 577 Martini, 577 Snider and collector ammo you don't often see. He had a rack full of cool stuff that some of the ammo went to. But.... way down on the bottom of the rack, one lonely gun just spoke to me asking for a good home...


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1863 Sharps Cavalry carbine, 54 cal.

So moral of the story boys and girls, it pays to look through the fud and antique stuff :D
 
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Sooo, I went to the Hickory show and got him a friend, another 1863. Yeah, I'm a sucker for Sharps and they can be tack drivers with some modifications and load development. Modification is done by a couple sources, but the bane of this design was the block freezing up due to black powder fouling. It happened during the War and ain't nothin changed. There are a couple guys in the North South Skirmish Association that modify the breech block with an O ring system that allows you to shoot to your little heart's content. I've heard of guys firing up to 100+ with the block not even beginning to bind up. Add to that, use "Charlie's tubes" with a standard ringtail bullet and making paper cartridges are completely unnecessary. Shot some last Sunday am and both guns are extremely promising. :D
 
I had a Shiloh sharps carbine, that was a tack driver. I would take the gas check out and spray it, and the front and top of the breach block with Pam. I could shoot a whole skirmish without taking the BB out. I used nitrated paper cartridges too. It worked well, and without scoring the gas check.
 
So GSimmons, I take it from your verbage you shoot or have shot with the NSSA.

Having a couple new toys, I just had to get on the range to try them out. I made up some ammo of several charges for each carbine and headed to the range. It was about 20f at the range and temps were falling as I shivered at the bench. There was also a guy with a SCAR next to me at the covered firing points with a very obnoxious compensator. That was one time I was really wishing I had brought my AR with me and it's Rolling Thunder comp, now that one will slap the fillin's outta yer teeth if you stand beside it. Anyhow, only had 5 per charge weight for each carbine. Both were impacting about 18in high (expected) so the first one or two of each 5 was just to get onto an aiming point at 50yds. Both guns really liked 45gr 3fg Old E with the last three shots of each group going into 2in or less, all the while my head was getting slapped around by the SCAR and shivering my boney arse off. About every 5 shots, I wiped the bore and dribbled a bit of Balistol on the breech block so no binding at all. So I'm really looking forward to getting the breech O Ring mod done, starting some serious load development and having both ready in time for Nationals in Winchester, VA. Why do I have two you might ask? Well, my 84yo dad is on my team and he likes Sharps too, so I got him one so he could ditch that 1858 Smith.
 
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