Very nice stock for an older rifle.

May I ask who that was?

If the military model is anywhere near how the sporting models functioned in the receiver area, i can see why they would not be popular ( besides being hammerless). It has a very good trigger but certainly not good quality.

SteveOKo922 wrote on Sep 20^th, 2025 at 4:12pm:


JP Lower was one of the big Denver gun sellers back in the 1800's. He and Carlos Gove dominated sales of Sharps rifles sold to Western hunters from the 1860's to late 1800's. Lower was also quite the big game hunter in his day, and had some documented run ins with Indians while out hunting also.
Gove sold more guns than Lower, but Lower often teamed up with Gove on purchases from Sharps, and Lower also bought out some other well known Denver gunsmiths, and dealers.

There are published articles on how to lighten the trigger pull that involves a screw that goes thru the top of the bolt and allows adjustment of the sear engagement.  Also BRC offers a service to lighten the trigger pull and I think all you have to do to get the job done is sending in the bolt.  $100 more or less.  A somewhat weaker striker spring can also result in a lighter trigger pull.

I agree the trigger arrangement is a bit torturous but it works.  Many very fine target rifles were made from Borchardts.  Zischang designed a DST design for the Borchardt and  Richard Binger also offered a design for DSTs.  Rodney Story offered castings to make the Zischang triggers. The striker design led to a very fast lock time.

The safety is a matter of personal preference but seems no worse than the safety on an M1.

My 55 year project. When I got this rifle back in the late 60s it had been rebarreled professionaly to 8.15x46R and the bolt handle had been added to the lever. The owner had wanted it for some kind of benchrest shooting and had stocked it with a beautiful plank of walnut. I say plank because that was basically it back then. The forearm was flat bottomed and so was the butt which was also flat sided. I played with it in the 8.15x46R and it shot well but the rifle spent a lot of time in the rack. Then I eventually got the wild hair that I wanted a 25 Krag for an antelope rifle and this was the obvious choice of action. It then eventually got a nice Shilen barrel and, of course, that shot well. Back in the rack. Again years passed and I decided something had to be done with the stock. I scribbled on some changes that I thought would make it less like a plank. More years passed. A neighbor offered to attack it with his bandsaw. More years passed. I looked for a buttplate that would fit where I wanted it and found one. More years passed with the buttstock on the shelf. I would run across it every now and then and think about taking a rasp or something to the plank and put it back on the shelf. Then Bobw came along with his story on making a stock and got me thinking again. The hang up now is where I could attack it and contain all the dust and wood chips. So, 55 years later it is back on the shelf while I figure that out. The wood is just too pretty to make firewood out of it. Maybe Bobw will say send it to him;-)

Thanks Marlinguy for the explanation. I have Sellers book on Sharps and there is a picture of Lower standing in front of a long range target he shot with his Borchardt and another picture of him standing in front of a rack of guns including his favorite Borchardt.



JMH