Just purchased my first Sharps rifle. As a pretty diehard Ballard and Rolling Block collector/shooter, I never contemplated a Sharps. But this rifle was offered to me and after examining it closely, the restoration was done on a Freund Bros. marked action! It has the Freund upgrades of dual extractors, camming breech block, and firing pin, and was done in a JP Gemmer style. The workmanship on the restoration is amazing, and really high grade wood. The chambering sure wasn't my first choice, as it's a .50-140, but it came with a lifetime supply of brass, and a couple molds for paper patched and grease groove bullets, so 
I've been chatting with oneatatime who loads BP in his .500-450 rifle and uses something called "amaranth seeds" as a filler over powder, and tells me his loads in the lighter rifle are more manageable, so that hopefully will make shooting the big .50 manageable in this 15 lb. rifle.


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Tough to make out the Freund rollstamp here, but it's got the "skull and crossbones" in the center that's typical of their Wyoming Armory Cheyenne shop.

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And here's the .50-140 cartridge next to one of my .45-70-480 gr. loads. That's a 678 gr. paper patch bullet, but the two molds are for 400 gr., which should be better on my shoulder!:

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Lucky, lucky you, Vall!  And thanks for sharing such an beautifully rebuilt and historically significant rifle.

Bill Lawrence

Both the Sharps rifle, and the big .50-140 are going to be a new adventure in single shots for me. I am truly grateful to the seller as he waited and held this Sharps until I could save enough money to complete this purchase. That really says a lot about the character of the seller, and is nice to know there are such good guys still!

Wow Vall.  That is even better than you were saying last month.  However, you need something in the 600+ gr. range to really appreciate that caliber  Here is one that should work.  

Jack

Nice find and beautiful rifle.

Congrats. Great score

A friend loaned me his book on the Freund rifles written by Ballantine. I spent a lot of time reading through the history of the brothers Frank and George, and found out they split up amicably around 1880-81 time frame. George moved his shop to Durango, Co. so they would not be competing with each other.
The stamp on the left side of the receiver with skull and crossbones inside the Freund markings was George's stamp, so likely the Freund improvements on this Sharps were done by George Freund after 1881.
I found it somewhat humorous to read that Frank married a woman he met on a trip to New York for business, and a few years later George married her sister. Frank's marriage lasted to his death and they had eight children. George's didn't fare well. They had one child, divorced a few year later, and he never saw his son again when his ex wife moved back East and remarried.

rollingblock wrote on Sep 24^th, 2022 at 2:49pm:


I see no barrel markings at all, but haven't removed the wedge key to see if any exist under the forearm?
Tried to get closeups, but my camera isn't cooperating. Hope these are OK. The rear ladder sight has a V notch whether laid down, or up, and both V notches have a small peep hole in them also.
Front sight is a brass blade that's blackened as far as I see.

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