Well, seems lightning done struck the pine! Did the earth's axis tilt a few degrees? Marlinguy acquires a big bore Sharps! Not just any Sharps, but a really beautiful and unique rifle. Congratulations on a truly great find, and I hope your shoulder holds up!
All the best, Doug
Ps: Thanks for bringing all of us along on your acquisitions, they're quite enjoyable.

Thanks guys!
The weather here is turning rainy tomorrow, so time to fire up my furnace and cast while the shop building is cooler. It appears the grease groove mold is about 425 grs. and hope it is close to what I need for the .510" groove diameter. If it happens to be too large I have a .511" sizer die for my Lyman and can size them down if needed.
Waiting on my filler to reduce charges of Swiss 1 1/2, which should arrive Thursday. Hoping to get rounds built, and shots fired next week if all works out. Maybe I'll find a guinea pig willing to fire one of the loaded rounds with the 678 gr. bullet while I'm at the range? I'll take a box along, just in case!

After a little fiddling around, trying to make my .50-70 die set possibly work to make up some .50-140 loads, it became obvious it wasn't going to work well. 
So I called C&H4D and talked to a nice young lady, who took my order. She then asked me to hold so she could check stock, and asked what bullet size I wanted the expander to be? In a couple minutes she came back and told me her desk was pretty full, so she wouldn't get the die set out until tomorrow, and expect to get it by Fri. or Sat.!
So I guess they're either not getting orders for this size, or they're finally catching up and can ship pretty darn fast!

bpjack wrote on Oct 4^th, 2022 at 5:21pm:


Even when I told her I wanted a different expander for .512" bullets instead of .510" listed she said she'd note that to make sure they sent the correct expander. Smooth as silk!

Got some pretty cool data from the Sharps records this morning! My 1874 was sold in Feb. 1880 as part of a small group of what he referred to as "A Rifles" which were "Assembled Rifles" long after production of the 1874 had halted. There is no cartridge or barrel info, so it may be that only an action was purchased? The buyer in Denver, Co. was the firm of Carlos Gove & JP Lower!
It's impossible to say whether Gove and Lower completed the rifle and sold it, or if they simply resold the action, and George Freund completed it and added his Freund Improvements? Or maybe Gove and Lower's shop completed the rifle, sold it, and the new owner took it to Durango, Co. to have Freund do his work on it?
Not a complete history, but enough to make for a very interesting provenance to the Old West gunsmiths, and the Colorado area.

bpjack wrote on Oct 13^th, 2022 at 5:13pm:


If all works out with my reduced BP loads it wont hurt, and will hopefully be like a medium load .45-70 with 425 gr. bullet. I got some help on making mild loads, so I just hope they're accurate once I get things sorted out.

My obsolete NOS Lyman 515141 .50 cal. .512" mold came in the mail yesterday. So today I'll be spending the day casting, and lubing bullets, I hope!

And beyond a trimmer, and another bullet mold, I also had to replace my old RCBS Rock Chucker too. It has a 3.5" stroke and my .50-140 cases wont allow a case and bullet into the press without backing the seating die out a few turns. So had to buy a Rock Chucker Supreme press with a longer 4.5" stroke to let me seat without fighting the press.
This thing is like a snowball!