Jesse's Hunting > Gun Room Articles > Gun Room Archives > Shooting Back In Time with the 1859 Sharps

Shooting Back In Time with the 1859 Sharps

Andy Moe - JHO Pro Staff - Southern CA
May 11, 2004

I wonder if Christian Sharps, in his wildest or happiest dreams, ever saw his breech loading rifle being used in the 21st century. They would have been happy dreams indeed because, certainly, he saw the doom of the single-shot rifle on the horizon in his own lifetime. During a brief two decades in the late 1800's, the advancement in firearms design and cartridge ballistics brought an end to the big-bore single shot rifle and the repeating rifle became king. The big single shots slowly slipped into disuse, eventually being tucked into barn rafters, closets, or the collections of those with foresight and an appreciation of history. Wherever they ended up, they fell out of general use for many years.

The rifle, the round, the results Just because it's a piece of history, doesn't mean it's not still pretty danged effective!

Today the interest in historical arms is on the rise. Companies are tooling up for weapons long considered obsolete to meet the growing demand of Civil War reenactors, modern day Mountain Men, Cowboy Action Shooters, and those who enjoy shooting the firearms of a simpler time. One of these companies is Davide Pedersoli, of Gardone, Italy. Pedersoli offers a wide range of high quality historical arms and accessories but are most often associated with their extensive line of Sharps rifles. From the most plain to the most ornately engraved, these Sharps rifles are known for their high degree of fit, finish, and historical detail. When I embarked on my quest for a percussion Sharps rifle, it was the Pedersoli brand I set my sights on.

The Percussion Sharps is a breechloading, black powder firearm. Originally designed to fire combustible paper or linen cartridges, the rifle can also be loaded by dropping a loose bullet into the breech and filling the chamber with black powder or a suitable substitute such as Pyrodex. A standard musket cap provides ignition for both types of loading. When using paper cartridges, the breechblock rises and cuts off the rear end of the cartridge, exposing the powder charge to the flash channel leading to the nipple. In the days of the muzzle loading musket, the Sharps rifle was considered a rapid fire weapon. Unique to the Sharps was the Sharps Patent floating chamber. This was a cylindrical steel insert in the breech end of the barrel that was forced rearward towards the breechblock during ignition, sealing the breech from escaping gasses. Further aiding this seal was a steel "gascheck" plate that was forced forward from the breechblock to meet the chamber. The mechanics of the percussion Sharps chamber always intrigued me, but not enough for me to overlook poor accuracy as part of the package. I work hard for my money and want to get more than a sun tan from my trips afield. When I started looking about for answers to the question of the percussion Sharps' accuracy I was stymied. Alas! The accuracy capabilities of these rifles is an obscure topic.

When you talk about the accuracy of the Sharps rifle, the average shooter envisions Mathew Quigley sliding those long brass cartridges into his Sharps and bouncing empty water buckets off of the horizon. Aside from the Civil War buff who will undoubtedly be aware of the "Berdan Sharps" used by the famous Berdan Sharpshooters in the War Between the States, you will find few people who associate accuracy with the percussion models of the Sharps rifle. In Claude Fuller's wonderfully informative book, "The Rifled Musket" there are chronicled many US Army trials of the Sharps Percussion rifles and carbines, and it's evident from U.S. Ordnance Dept records that the Sharps was considered exceptionally accurate in its day. Still, 140 year old Ordnance tests at 300, 600 and 800 yards don't seem to relate to modern day circumstance and the more practical performance of these earliest Sharps rifles was left subject to doubt. As a consequence of these doubts I searched the internet for a month finding little on the percussion Sharps beyond Civil War historical reference and vague instructions for making paper cartridges. I decided to e-mail some of the suppliers of these rifles to see if they'd had any feedback on accuracy. Only one company responded and what they had to say wasn't what most folks would call encouraging. Basically, I was told that if I was expecting "Sharps Accuracy" I should forget the percussion models and jump straight to the 1874 model cartridge rifle, avoiding much grief and disappointment. A normal person might have pulled the plug on the idea right then and there but, "You'll never make it shoot" is the last thing you want to tell a stubborn fool like myself. In my mind, the gauntlet had been thrown down and I was soon on the hunt for a fifty-four caliber, 1863 Sharps sporting rifle.

And hunt I did. Unfortunately, there were no 1863 Pedersoli Sharps available. Anywhere. My search eventually took me to Canada and the web site of Loyalist Arms and Repair, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. These good folks were also sold out of the 1863 model but happened to have a fifty-four caliber, Pedersoli Model 1859 Carbine in stock at a more than reasonable price. I hadn't planned on buying a carbine but the price was right and my fever high. An International Postal Money Order went out and in two weeks I had the rifle at my doorstep, safe and sound.

When I opened the box for my first look at this carbine the over all sense of Quality radiated from the box like a warm light. The dark walnut stocks glowed softly and the blue-brown color case hardening was as smooth as an oil-slicked puddle. The action was smooth and positive. The lockwork was crisp. During my initial cleaning and inspection I found all the parts to be well machined and free of burrs. The metal to metal fit was perfect and the wood to metal fit was amazing for a factory rifle. My cleaning ritual caused me to completely disassemble the rifle and wash out any oils that might be present. I treated the barrel with Thompson Center's "Bore Butter" lubricant and made sure that the breech parts also got a liberal coating. I have found that treatments with this lube increase the number of shots I can fire without cleaning, and speed up the dreaded cleaning process when I was done. With the rifle cleaned and ready to shoot I was all set for my first Sharps Experience.

Along with my rifle, I had ordered a Pedersoli-made bullet mold cut specifically for the .54 caliber Sharps. This mold drops a .545" diameter bullet weighing 525 grains of when cast of pure lead. I cast 100 of these beauties and came to appreciate the quality of this mold, not only for its excellent casting qualities but for the tolerances held in machining. This bullet is designed to be a push fit into the bore for the length of the first driving band and, as promised, this bullet "snapped" into the bore with gentle pressure. The benefit of this bore-riding design is that when the bullet is seated in the breech there is little or no chance of bullet cant. Breech seating - the technique of seating the bullet into the lands of the rifling- was a favorite technique the Schuetzen-fest shooters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I was impressed that a set of production mold blocks could have such a custom-cut fit and might have thought it pure luck but Jim Dolson, one of D. Pedersoli's reps at the SHOT show, told me that the company prides itself on providing the absolute proper diameter bullet for their rifles and muskets: Something worth knowing. I left these bullets unlubed due to the dusty desert climate I live in, planning to simply lube each bullet with Bore Butter at the time of loading.

Paper cartridges. Dixie Gun Works catalogues pre-cut nitrated cartridge papers but I really wanted to nitrate some paper for myself. "Nitrate" refers to potassium nitrate, more commonly known as salt petre, one of the larger components of gunpowder. In practice, the potassium nitrate is dissolved in water, placed in a pan, and sheets of good quality cotton-linen paper are soaked in the solution and hung to dry. After drying, the sheets are cut to the appropriate size - approximately 2 ½ inches by 3 inches for my Sharps- and rolled into cartridges. On firing, the paper is consumed with the powder charge. Setting out to make my own, I easily found the linen paper at the local office supply store. Enough paper for a half year's worth of steady shooting set me back nine dollars. Unfortunately I was unable to locate any potassium nitrate locally and all the internet providers consider it a "restricted" item. What little print there is on making paper cartridges states that you can pick up salt petre at any local pharmacy, I'd found that it just wasn't true anymore. As much as I wanted to have this facet of the Sharps adventure as part of my tale, it wasn't to be.

With no salt petre, and a packet of cartridge papers now reluctantly ordered from Dixie Gun Works, I decided to try the loose component method of shooting the Sharps. In other words, drop a bullet into the breech, top off with black powder -or in my case, Hodgdon's Pyrodex RS- close the breech and cap. That seemed like a good, basic level to start shooting at and more akin to the traditional bullet-n-powder musket shooting I was used to. This is where I ran into my next setback. The manufacturer lists "60 to 80 grains" of FFg as the recommended load but when I poured a 60 grain measure of powder in behind the bullet there was a huge amount of unfilled space in the chamber. As you may know, any air space between a blackpowder charge and the projectile can be extremely hazardous! I began to add powder in 10 grain increments until the chamber was just overflowing: 95 grains. I wasn't as worried about shooting this quantity of powder as I was puzzled by the amount of powder the chamber swallowed before topping off. How could a 60 grain charge work? I'd worry about that later. First I wanted to make some smoke! I cocked the hammer, capped the nipple, took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. Pop! Nothing happened. Another cap fired and still nothing. Another cap gave the same results. On the fourth cap the rifle fired. I was shooting off hand at 25 yards and the bullet printed 6" high and 2" right. I reloaded; dropping the lubed bullet into the chamber and following it with the same charge of Pyrodex. This time it took 11 caps to get ignition. Yes, I'd taken the time to snap a dozen caps before I ever loaded, just to make sure the flash channel was clear. Something was wrong and switching brands of caps from CCI to RWS didn't help either; I had to abuse a half a tin of caps to get the first 5 holes in the target. Adding insult to injury, those first 5 shots went into about 4 inches at 25 yards despite a reasonably steady hold. The situation was a little frustrating but I opted to keep shooting. I was certain that the ignition problem could be fixed so I attended to the accuracy issue.

For the next series of shots I would breech-seat the bullet into the rifling, engaging the rifling with the first driving band of the bullet. The bullet was dropped into the chamber and pressed it into the bore with a short section of cleaning rod until I felt the first driving band click into place. The 95 grain measure of Pyrodex followed. Lordy! The difference was immediate! I still needed 30 caps to get off 5 shots but all the bullets dove into 1.5 inches from the off hand position. That was more to my liking! It was time to go home and fix the ignition problem. I disassembled and cleaned the rifle with T/C's #13 bore cleaner, coated the metal with "Bore Butter", and headed home happy. When I got home I swapped the factory musket nipple with one that had a ventilation hole drilled into it similar to Uncle Mike's brand "Hot Shot" nipples. That was the fix. It seems that all the Sharps needed for reliable ignition was a little more oxygen for the cap to burn. From then on I never had another misfire with this rifle.

The free time waiting for the combustible cartridge papers to arrive from Dixie was spent musing on the huge amounts of powder needed to fill that carbines' chamber. When I breech seated the bullets the chamber took even more powder to fill: 110 grains to be exact. This was pretty annoying from a technical standpoint though the rifle seemed to take the heavy charge in stride. I took some measurements and immediately understood why the charge requirements were so high. The bullet may have been .545" in diameter but the chamber was a huge .640" in diameter! I haven't stopped to figure it out exactly but I think if the diameter of the chamber was closer to the diameter of the bullet the recommended powder charges might have been right on. I don't know Pedersoli's reason for providing such a generous chamber but it had to be dealt with. The situation seemed to rule out assembling cartridges with fixed bullets as there would be too much disparity in the diameters of the cartridge and the bullet. Besides, there was no sense in stepping away from what promised to work. I still may try it someday but at the time I decided to set the idea aside. I'd continue to breech-seat the bullet as I had done during my first outing, backing the bullet with a combustible paper cartridge containing only the powder.

My packet of 100 cartridge papers arrived from Dixie in short order. There are several cartridge making "kits" on the market but I was up for making my own -especially in light of the developments with my Sharps' chamber. Using the chamber measurements I obtained, I fashioned a wooden dowel for rolling cartridges. The dowel was filed and sanded to the proper diameter while spinning in my drill press. The necessary finished diameter was easily determined by adding a double thickness of the cartridge paper to the diameter of the dowel -making sure the total diameter was just under the size of the chamber. After the dowel was finished to the proper diameter I took my Dremel tool and ground a hollow in the end. This hollow would be where the twisted "tail" of the paper cylinder would be tucked, leaving a smooth, square face on the finished paper cartridge to butt up against the bullet. With this done, I seated a bullet into the chamber and inserted the dowel until it made contact with the bullet's base, carefully marking on the rod, in ink, the location of the chamber mouth. The volume represented by the dowel body, from the bullet base to the ink mark, would be the amount of space I needed to fill in my cartridges to assure proper function in the Sharps. When my paper cartridge was ready to charge, the powder level would have to be past that ink mark to ensure a completely full chamber. Once charged with powder, the remaining portion of the paper cylinder would be folded and glued. This folded tail would be the rear end of the cartridge and it proved quite handy in aligning the cartridge with the breech.

I found it was quite easy to make the paper cartridges. In all, it takes me about 20 seconds to fashion an empty paper cartridge. I first apply glue to one edge of the paper using a common glue stick, then wrap the paper around the dowel and seal the seam. The cartridge is completed by twisting the protruding tail of the tube tightly and pushing it into the cavity hollowed out on the end of the dowel. The tube is then removed from the dowel and allowed to dry for a few minutes. I had my first dozen in no time flat. It was that simple.

Roll Your Own Cartridges Paper cartridges aren't too difficult.

Charging the tubes was a little more work. I marked a test cartridge with a line corresponding to the ink mark on the dowel, and then filled the empty cartridge to that mark with Pyrodex RS. I wanted a 70 grain charge but when I measured the volume of powder in this test cartridge it represented a 90 grain equivalent. No surprise there. Needing to fill the cartridge to that 90 grain volume left me looking for a way to take up the unwanted space left over when I reduced the actual load to a 70 grain charge. Plain cornmeal was the answer. Cornmeal has long been used by blackpowder revolver shooters to reduce the chamber capacity of their revolvers and allow adequate loading density with light target charges. In practice, the meal is placed over powder and under the ball and I saw no reason why it couldn't be put to a similar use in the Sharps cartridges. By pouring 70 grains of "RS" Pyrodex into a paper tube and comparing it to my witness mark on the dowel, I visually determined the volume of cornmeal needed to take up the space of 20 grains of Pyrodex RS. I used a dipper from my Lee Powder Measure Set to first pour in the cornmeal then added a generous 80 grain measure of the Pyrodex. Remember: I wanted the powder charge in the paper cartridge to extend past the chamber mouth so as to insure complete filling of the chamber when the breechblock closed. To do this I needed to add a bit more powder than I actually wanted to charge the rifle with. That 10 grains excess powder would be sheared off with the end of the cartridge when the breechblock was closed. Once the head scratching part was done with and I knew how much cornmeal to put into the cartridge case ahead of the Pyrodex it became very easy. A small loading block fashioned from a bit of oak board held the cartridge tubes during the corn meal and powder charging process. Folding the remaining paper of the tube into the "tail" completed the cartridge and I had ten cartridges made in no time. I was off to the range the next morning.

That lovely day, everything clicked. I breech-seated the lubed bullet using a short length of cleaning rod, slid a paper cartridge in behind it, and closed the breech; watching as the breechblock neatly sheared off the cartridge tail and the 10 extra grains of powder. I blew the loose powder granules and cartridge tail off of the breech block, capped, and fired. Firing from a sand-bag rest at 30 yards I had my first five shots cut each other in a group that measured ¾ inch, center-to-center, 6 inches above the point of aim and somewhat to the right. My next five shots repeated the group in the same relative spot on a fresh target. While this may not seem like spectacular accuracy you have to understand that I'm dealing with a 16-inch sight radius, open carbine sights, and old eyes! Not to mention a "musket" trigger. I was pretty pleased.

Loading Up Loading the paper cartridges for the real test. Sending the bullet downrange!

On a later range trip I switched from Pyrodex "RS", to Pyrodex "CTG". This is the coarsest grade of Pyrodex and normally used for blackpowder fueled metallic cartridges. Owing to the coarseness of the "CTG" powder granules, I opted to put a small wad of Saran wrap plastic between the powder and the cornmeal to prevent the meal from sifting back through the powder charge during transport and handling. The wad was made from a 1 ¼" square of the plastic and compressed onto the cornmeal before the powder was loaded into the cartridge tube. (It worked fine and would probably a good idea regardless of the kind of powder used.) The groups actually got smaller with the "CTG" grade Pyrodex. My last group of that day, fired after a rear sight adjustment to correct the right windage, grouped ½ inch center to center. My son, Andy, watching from an adjacent shooting bench, just said, "I guess that worked!" I couldn't have agreed more and happily rang the 200 meter range gong with two of my last three cartridges.

I guess the Percussion Sharps' accuracy question has been answered - at least from my standpoint. In all the testing since that first outing, I have never fired a group from a rest with this Pedersoli carbine that did not have all the shots touching at thirty yards. A properly fitted bullet, breech-seated into the rifling, and followed by a reasonable charge of quality propellant -wrapped in a well made cartridge- seem to be the key. Could I see hunting with this rifle? Sure. The process of loading takes far longer to describe than it does to actually complete. A short starter rod would facilitate seating the bullets. If I was in a real hurry to get off a second shot I'd just drop the bullet in and shove home a paper cartridge. Sometime soon I'll attempt to make a paper cartridge with a fixed bullet and see how that works. I have a good incentive: I called my friends at Loyalist Arms the other day and ordered my 1863 Business Rifle in .54 caliber. It will be a few months yet before the rifle arrives from Italy. Plenty of time to plan! I can envision mounting a good Pedersoli tang sight and putting some long range shooting on the venue. It'll be another adventure with a Sharps and I can hardly wait.

AUTHORS NOTE: Safety precautions must be adhered to while handling and shooting black powder firearms. Always follow manufacturers recommended loads, loading practices, and loading sequences. To do otherwise may cause injury to shooters and/or bystanders. Always wear proper shooting eyewear. All data and events contained in this article have been chronicled for entertainment purposes and are in no way to be understood to be a guide for any readers to use in their own shooting and reloading endeavors. The author and J.H.O. will not be held responsible for injury or damage that occurs as a result of trying to replicate any of the loads or loading techniques outlined in this article.