marlinguy wrote on Jun 5^th, 2026 at 11:32am:


Maybe the key words in his advertising are  "" modern style ""
The 1874 Sharps is not a modern style. 

For anyone who doesn't reload, I wouldn't use Buffalo Bore as a good choice. He doesn't sell anything that's not pretty hot.

I'm assuming that's what he meant when he said Christian sharps, but it's a guess.  I went over to the c. Sharps site and they have a FAQ with a section on loading with smokeless.   They say you can use Ruger starting loads.  Often those are slightly less than lever gun max loads which would put it in the category 2 like you suggested.

Looks like maybe I was right about the gas checked bullet.  Just finished firing a string of shots with a gas checked bullet with good results.
Using 57 grain of the IMR 7383 and a 410gn custom bullet design yielded very good results.  The bullet at 410 grain is a bit heavier than I wanted to use but is the only one I had on hand ready to go.  
  I designed this bullet for the 405 Win and it worked great for that cartridge pushing the big 410gn bullet to just slightly over 2000 fps. That load accounted for several moose and proved more than adequate shooting through from any angle.
  Its a heavy bullet but being a flat nose is apparently not too long for the 1/18" rifling twist of my rifle staying inside 3" at 100 yards. All I had to do to prep the bullets was to size them down from .412" for the 405 Win to .410" for the 40-90.  I had the Ohler out and the load is averaging 1730 fps with a 10 SD.
  1730 fps with a 410gn 40 caliber is as hard as I care to push with the Sharps. I am not trying to re-invent the 405 Win here just trying to develop a good elk hunting load. 
  In the BN case a BP duplex load gets up to 1600 fps with a 375 grain bullet but as was discovered early on in the history of the 40-90 BN fouling builds quickly just ahead of the chamber making chambering difficult for follow up shots.
   This smokeless load eliminates that issue.   I loaded these test rounds in fired but un-sized brass . The load density of the 57 grain charge is 100 % because after settling the powder in the case by vibrating the charged case the bullet is hand seated to set on the powder and give the correct desired cartridge length.
   This has worked out well for me using the IMR 7383 powder because I purchased a good stock of it from Jeff Bartlett when it was $10.00 per pound.