Howdy all,
It's been a few years since I picked up this old Sile Sharps. I was then a member of a muzzleloader group here in Sonoma County (SVML) shooting a 50 cal Thompson Hawken, when one of the guys was retiring from shooting his BPCR guns asked if anyone was interested in his Sharps. At the time, I jumped on it! Nothing special for sure being a Sile/IAB Sharps with plain wood and round about a 28" barrel, but it's mine nonetheless. The gentleman threw in a box of 50 rounds 45-70 to go with it. At the time, all I knew was they were the right cartridges for the rifle. Took a few shots with it at the range and wow, the thing kicked with those hand loads but was accurate enough to hit steel at 200 yards (all I had at the time).
A lot of reading later... and more reading... I learned a bit about these guns. The hand loads I got with the rifle are probably too hot, I recall he mentioned they were some grains BP along with some grains smokeless. Looks like a 500 gr lead bullet. Those cases swell upon firing. I picked up some Federal 300 gr hunting loads which do not swell and am now reloading with 405 gr lead lubed bullets and smokless powder for the time being. Haven't shot any of those loads yet, but I may need to pick up some more brass since those original 50 rounds seem to be loaded too hot. I may not even shoot the rest.
As for the action, it's been worked on. There's a custom set trigger assembly, that only cocks & fires once the set trigger is set. Pulling it apart, the primary trigger will only release the set trigger which has too much tension on it, so the set trigger needs to be pulled to cock the hammer. I'm really hoping to find a better solution for this but missed out on a double trigger set online a while ago. I noticed that the hammer can be released from the half-cock position as well; I need to look at that notch more to see what's up there. The barrel though looks great. I believe the PO shot silhouette with it.
I'll do some disassembly and get some photos of the internals. Here's some photos of the rifle as it is now though.
Clay Carley