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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Wow........very, very nice!!!

Does anyone have a current phone contact, email, or info to get a Sharps letter?
I found Dr. Richard Labowski info with a ph. @215-748-1376, but nobody answers this phone, and his mail box is full, so can't leave a message.

Vall,

After spending a couple of months looking for 30-30 Wesson dies and finding them out of stock even at CH4D, I decided to call them and see if I could place an order.  It was probably the same lady that said to hold on for a minute and she came back saying they had a set.  Great company to deal with.  Just don't rely on an updated website.  It takes quite a bit of time to keep inventory updated unless you have a sophisticated ($$) website/inventory/sales interface.

Jack

As promised, C&H delivered on my dies this morning! And as usual the quality is gorgeous, with a mirror finish inside!

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Very cool.

You must bring it to the OAC 2 day show next year.

Now to make it go bang......ouch!

Jack

It will be fun to shoot no matter what!

Jack

Got some bullets cast, lubed, and cartridges made up. Then ran into a dead end with cases. A large number of my brass is .500 Nitro Express and needs a hair cut to be used in my Sharps. So now I need to find a trimmer that can handle the length and diameter of the large cases before I can build anymore ammo.

here is some smokless data from Accurate Powder manual #1.

They seemed a little stout to me as well that I thought I would post them. The 5744 data was the only stuff I thought usable.  And it was interesting to see pressure data for the smokeless loads.I keep my 50-90 down to about 1300 with a 550 g bullet and it's not that bad in a 11 pound gun. Somebody here gave me the load and I used 30 g of  5744 or Buffalo rifle.

oneatatime wrote on Oct 17^th, 2022 at 12:07pm:


I actually have a bit of both and in my 30 grain charge there was no difference of the poi at 200 yd. (only a 16,000 psi load in a strong rifle)Smaller cases probably have to worry about it.

Went to the range today to test fire my loads I made up. I used 75 grs. of Swiss 1 1/2 and a 425 gr. bullet, with 45 grs. of amaranth seed filler over the powder, and a Walters .060" wad. The loads worked very good, and recoil in this heavy rifle was very mild! I shot all 40 rds. I had made up and can't even tell I shot anything today. Even after shooting my Heoburn in .40-65 and my Ballard 4 1/2 A-1 Extra in .40-63 also. 
The sights were a real issue, and I need to put much better sights on it before another trip to the range. The ladder style Freund rear sight, and rounded narrow blade front sight made for a horrible sight picture, and impossible with my old eyes to be sure about a center or 6 o'clock hold. And the POI was 8"-10" higher than the sight picture, so front blade is too short.
The tang isn't D&T for a tang sight, but since this rifle has been restored it wont be hurt by D&T for a good tang sight, and install a decent globe in front. I'll have to do that before wasting anymore range time with the existing sights.
But I'm tickled about how mild the reduced loads are, and thanks to Chauncey (oneatatime) for his advice on building up reduced loads for a big thumper.

It is my understanding that  the rough castings come from China and RCBS machines them in the USA.

this is what some boxes say.maybe some are all usa?

marlinguy wrote on Oct 26^th, 2022 at 9:18pm:


Maybe the lower end presses are outsource parts?