The 45-120-550 Shaps St.

[Galloway]

I see my 1885 hartley and graham catalog clearly lists this cartridge as having a 3 1/4'' case length. I've read other places this load was used in 45 2 7/8'' cases, but here they show the 45-110 listed as 45-105-550. The 1885 winchester isnt listed yet but the 66,73, and 76 are still availible. I also see they still offered the 1874 and 1878 sharps rifles. The 45 3 1/4'' cartridge is listed with the other 45 caliber Sharps cartridges offerd by UMC. So it looks like the 45 3 1/4'' was somewhat popular as a wildcat. I also got to wondering if maybe a distributor like H&G sold rechambered sharps rifles as new after sharps closed its doors.

[Ranch 13]

There's a good bit of speculation about the 3 1/4 inch case and its origins. I personally think that Sharps did introduce it probably just before they closed the doors for the last time. There are in fact letters from the West asking for just that very thing, but the standard factory answer was we already load the 2 7/8 in case with 120 grs of powder and the 550 gr patched bullet.
In the Sharps catalogs they do indeed list the 120 gr load in the 2 7/8 inch case.

Lots of fun and good reading if you go to Cornell Publishing and order the reprints from the Sharps, Remington, Winchester, Marlin and others from back in the day. Those things are a gold mine of information.