Farmingdale chamber

[PJ Hardtack]

I have read that some Farmingdale-made '74's had a long 'freebore' intended for paper patched bullets. I looked at the chamber of my Farmingdale Business Rifle and what I saw was NO 'freebore' and/or leade before the rifling!

There is just an abrupt looking step after where the chamber ends and the rifling begins.

I got curious after I made a dummy cartridge with a Lyman 457125 seated out one grease groove and it would not go all the way in. I think I knew this from the get-go with this rifle and simply forgot about it as I've always loaded for this rifle with the bullet to seated to the front driving band.

So much for seating out the bullet to get in more powder .... unless I have the chamber reamed out. But I'm reluctant to do that as the rifle shoots well as it is. If'n it ain't broke .....

I took that same cartridge and put it into my H&R Officer Model Trapdoor. Because the bullet was not taper crimped into the case, I was able to close the action. When I extracted the case, the bullet was seated as per above! So, it too lacks any 'free bore' or leade.

I googled the chamber specs for the 45-70 and the current standard is for a short 'free bore' before the leade to the rifling. It's a poor day when you don't learn something .....

[DTS]

Brad's first M74 in .50 -3 1/4 had NO leade before the lands started, which I am lead to believe was normal chambering for original rifles.
He ended up with my .50 3 1/4" witch had a good 1/2" of leade and kicked too much for me as I was shooting a 550gr. at about 1,760fps. It was not fun, hurt too much, so I sold it. I could not get it to shoot with black powder with the bullets I had at hand.  The fellow who bought it, fired a couple, cut the butt off and put on on a recoil pad, didn't like that, so sold it to Brad. LOL

As I understand it, Shiloh is the one who 'developed' the long throat calling it a paper patched bullet throat. The trouble with that, is the free-bore or long leade (which ever you want to call it - is OK) hinders chambering a ctg. due to blackpowder fouling in that leade or freebore unless the rifle is cleaned between shots.

According to Paul Mathews, original ammo had tapered bullets with only the base being close to groove diameter(after patching), and patched to fit the bore, allowed long bullets to be used in the buffalo rounds - in any so-chambered rifle, not matter the groove diameter. Due to being pure lead or nearly so, they obturated to fill the grooves.

After reading "The Paper Jacket", Taylor and I bored a Lyman 4-cavity .44 mag. mould to cast 460 and 580gr. PP bullets of correct size (.438") such that after patching the pure lead bullets, they just scrubbed the lands in my .45 3 1/4"Rolling Block that did not have a long leade. We cut another mould to cast a 400gr. PP bullet, that did the same and shot well in his Shiloh Sharps .45 3 1/4 that had only .015" deep rifling - yes - 1 1/2 thou. deep. Cast in pure lead, these bullets shot 1 1/2" in Taylor's M74 Sharps and 1.2"@ 100 meters for the 580's in my Hoch Barrel (14 pound rifle)

As Paul stated, using these undersized bullets and lube cookie'd loads, we were able to shoot 2, 5 shot groups, then push a DRY patch through the barrel and ALL the fouling would push out- gone. We adjusted the grease cookie to leave a thin star on the muzzle's crown.

Seems to me, Taylor's .45 3 1/4" barrel had a long leade (we could check it).  The 400gr. MASKING TAPED (1 wrap) pure lead bullet shot very well in his rifle, not-withstanding the so-called paper patch throat.  Perhaps that is the key to getting the long throated Shiloh rifles shooting? My Hoch barrel did not have a long leade or throat. Pushing a patched bullet through the bore left a perfect bullet with 6 lines marked on the patch from the lands - just as Frank Meyer said should happen, so many years ago.

[Kent Shootwell]

Shiloh Sharps were chambered with short lead from the chamber to the rifling. Some were given a long throat at the distributer to try and let bullets to be seated out. Turns out the problem was that the bullet lube wasn't correct for black powder. The long throat wasn't needed and really should not of been done. I did many of them while working there so I know of what I speak. This wasn't Shilohs fault as they built them right. In 1980 there wasn't the knowledge developed or rediscovered to get the performance from black powder cartridges that we enjoy today.

[Advertising]

[DTS]

Hmm - I never used anything but a black powder lube, still, the long throat was a problem due to fouling until we went with the bore sized, pure lead bullets - they worked, and beautifully.  This 'problem' of a long throat and shallow rifling was not alleviated in my brother's Sharps until we switched to the bore sized bullets (after patching), just as Paul Mathews noted.  His recommendations worked, after trying for about 7 years, to get my brother's Sharps to shoot - remember 1 1/2 thou rifling. We went from 8" to 1 1/2". I'd call that success. Those bullets, patched in that matter, work in non- long throated barrels as well.
Taylor pulled that barrel and installed a McGowen 24" twist .50 barrel. In the chamber, he's using a 600gr. Buffalo Arms bullet and 91gr. of Swiss. It shoots well indeed.

[mehavey]

I picked up one of Wolfgang's/Farmingdale LR Express (45-3¼)* rifles back in `81.
I had a devil of a time w/ paper patch until I took a Clymer throat reamer to it.

Thereafter it shot less than MOA with the big Ballard smooth-sided/paper-patch mold.
600gr Ballard bullet - 1Fg-90gr/4759-8gr - 1 milk-carton over-powder card and 1@¼"crisco/beeswax-soaked felt under-bullet wad.
Two warps of 25% cotton Arrow onionskin/BreakFree oven-dried/rubbed w/ 1:3 white lithium/motor-mica mix




* Learned my lesson.  Everything since than has been 45-70/45-90   

[PJ Hardtack]

This stuff is the best discussion in a long time on this forum! I'm glad it's happening.

Now I feel a lot better about my Farmingdale 'Business Rifle' not having a free bore or leade in the chamber. And like I said, "If''n it ain't broke, I ain't gonna fix it."
I'm going to re-measure the twist in the barrel as the word on the net is that it should be 1x20", not the 1x21-22" I measured. Slower than the current 1x18" standard of today, but faster than the old 1x22" which served the '73 Trapdoor Springfields well.

The idea of paper patching gives me the screamin'-meemies! Thanks, but no thanks! hats off to you guys that think it adds to the joy of shooting BPCR's. Using masking tape sounds a might modern expedient, but if'n it works, don't knock it!

I'm too casual to even index brass or bullets. Maybe once I put a few more tons of lead downrange, I'll get a little more finicky. Right now I gotta employ the KISS principle.

Paul Matthews book was one of the first books I bought after buying my first Shiloh. I quickly learned that if I wanted a sub-.458 Win mag, I should have bought one! I find his loads more than a little on the heavy side. BP potential with smokeless is all I can handle and enjoy. A pal shoots his scoped Ruger #3 carbine with them, but not very often and not very well. I think he learned the lesson.

Met a guy at the range once shooting three very nice 38-55's. He noticed my 45-70 Business Rifle and asked if I'd be interested in buying his Shiloh 45-110 c/w tang sights. I told him - not on a bet and asked why he bought it to begin with. Answer - "I was a lot younger then and it seemed like a good idea at the time."

The first Sharps I ever shot was an original '74 45-90 that belonged to a friend. I shot it at Squamish in a BP match against Taylor's .62 Hawken in an offhand match on a saw blade at 250 yds. I won. Load was 45-70 cases with the bullets seated out. Don't recall the powder charge.

I do recall that the lube was bicycle wheel bearing grease, hand wiped on the as cast 405 gr bullets I used in my H&R Trapdoor carbine. Who knew from BP lubes in those days and what was this thing called "compression"?

[DTS]

Compression is what my 6.7  Diesel has lots of.