That long free bore is how we did it for LR shooting back before there was much in the way of brass except for 45-70.  It worked    BTW, nice rifle

Thanks for building such a beautiful rifle, and thanks for the offer of information on the rifle. I will send you a pm later today. 

I believe that I bought it from the fellow that you built it for.  I didn't ask him a lot about the rifle other than a few details like length of pull and twist rate.

Chris.

A very nice conversion indeed. The colour case hardening on the receiver looks like Al Storey's work. You won't regret the barrel weight when you fire it with a full powder charge and a 525+ grain bullet. I just hope it meets the weight rules for Long Range Rifle Competition, which I believe is 12lb these days. Interestingly the action was originally made (cut) for Borchardt's DST design but apparently not fitted on this action as it has the Sharps blanking plate covering the cut out section, where the DST's were supposed to go.

Harry.

Oh, thank you for the information regarding the action being cut for DST's.  The sum of my knowledge of the Borchardt rifle comes from reading Seller's book and a few others.  I have a lot to learn yet

Chris.

Excellent info, Harry. Thank you.

Frank

Chris,
It would appear that the people in charge of action production at the Sharps Factory made some bad guesses when it came to what the market would take. Whilst fairly common in Europe this design of DST wasn't at all popular with American shooters who seemed to prefer 'in line' DST's. Another complaint was that on firing the setting trigger being released and under strong spring pressure flew back and caught the trigger finger with a heavy blow which did nothing to endear it to the owner. Given the amount of club target shooting in those days one could well imagine that the word would be circulated widely in a short time. Yet a friend of mine in the USA uses one regularly and loves it.

I've never seen a price for these DST's in any Sharps Catalogue but I would have thought the price may have been relatively high as each had to be hand fitted to the action and they were serial numbered in line with the action number and were not interchangeable with another Borchardt action. 

It seems that enough people liked the standard in line DST's that several gunsmiths produced them most famously, Zischang, Schoyen, and Niedner. More recently Joe Lozito in NY was making them but I understand old age and illness has slowed him right down and there is a long, long wait for him to fit them.

When the Sharps Factory closed the NY company of Schuler, Hartley and Graham bought the stock of unsold rifles and all spares and components for both the Borchardt and earlier models. They were still selling Borchardt's by the case in 1905 a quarter of a century after the factory closed. Zischang's workshop was within easy walking distance of this company and it highly likely to have supplied all the Borchardt actions and spare parts he needed for his custom built target rifles.
I have come across dozens of pictures of these Borchardt's cut for his DST's that are only fitted with these blanking plates over the years so they are certainly not uncommon.

Harry