I bought a Colt-Sharps single shot rifle at the Dallas Market Hall gun show a few months back. Beautiful rifle and has all the original accessories.  I took it out to the range for the first time this morning and received a very rude surprise.  When I called it a single shot, that's exactly what it turned out to be.  I had a complete failure to extract the fired .25-06 case.  Of course, being an optimist, I had not taken a cleaning rod with me to the range.  I took the rifle home and got the case out with said cleaning rod.  The extractor seems to work fine as long as there is no case in the chamber, but it will not even extract an unfired case.  I am about to order a new extractor, extractor plunger and plunger spring from Numrich, but I have no clue as to how to disassemble the action.  I know that a few people on the board have some experience with the rifle.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Does anyone have detailed stripping instructions?  Any assistance would be appreciated.

Yeah, based on the numbers, I didn't expect a flood of information on this one.  I thought I had read in a thread here on the forun, though, on how to remove the block.  Alas, I haven't been able to find it  again, but I'll keep looking.
Volleman, thanks for the book reference.  I have all of his books but that one.  I'll try to locate a copy.

Check your PM.

It may not be your extractor but the spring or set screw. Early rifles had possible extractor problems with a thin web. That was supposedly corrected before Colt bought them but even so its possible it could have broken.
As I recall the breakdown GPC shows is not the same as that put out by Colt. I supplied that at the time and felt it better than Colts. There were differences but off hand can't recall what they were. Old Age

One of the changes Colt made was the addition of an extractor screw, spring and plunger. This is the small hole bottom right side of receiver next to the action pin (screw). The three items go here to put pressure on the extractor. see if there is an allen screw inside and try to turn CW.

One of the problems with the CS is that running changes were being made and not all are alike.

BrianJ

Anything's possible with your chamber...more likely that you might have a partial case stuck in the chamber, from a case separation.  You can tell what's going on with a chamber cast, using Cerrosafe.  If it's a too-tight chamber, you'll be able to measure it, if it's a separated case, you should be able to remove it with the chamber cast, as long as the cast goes into the bore by about 3/8".

David

Runningiron,

Its possible.

I have a 243 CS that is "short chambered" from the factory. Most, not all, new factory cases or factory loaded ammo will not chamber in mine. I ended up shortening my cases about .015" in the sizing die.

bjm

Thanks for the access route to the Patent, Volleman, I hadn't been able to locate it before.

Goodness knows why they called it the Colt Sharps. I can understand the Colt bit, but it bears damn little resemblence to even the Sharps Borchardt apart from the fact it was a hammerless falling block, and there were many of those, especially on my side of the pond.

Harry

And Volleman, thanks for the patent information.  I had not a clue on how to find it.

I've always been of the opinion, that the reason the Colt/Sharps rifle failed, was that it was offered in post 1900 calibres, (needle blowers if you will), rather than the more traditional big bore black powder rounds that most single shot afficianardo's seem to prefer.

I loved the look of the rifle, but I would never have bought it (had I had the opportunity) in any of the calibres that it was offered in. It may have paid Colt to do some market research first, before deciding on chambering it for relatively modern (white powder) calibre's.

I sincerely apologise to anyone offended by the swear words, 'White Powder'.

Harry