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Shiloh sharps

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I have never dealt with Shilo as a friend ordered the carbine I have and a cartridge gun for himself. After several years and countless phone calls the guns arrived but he has nothing positive to relate about the conversations and I believe that if they sent him a brown truck full of free rifles he'd throw a Molotov cocktail at it when it pulled in the drive.
I love everything about Shiloh shops except their customer service. Needs to be upped a little bit. Either telephone or email, their quality of customer service needs to be worked on a bit. other than that they would probably be a perfect company to do business with.
 
I have a Model 1863 Shiloh .54 cal I bought back in the late `70's. It was expensive then. I think I paid $225 for it as a used gun, which was a lot at the time. I've never been too clear on the right way to shoot or load it. I've always just dropped the bullet in, (which seems to stick in the rifling) filled up the rest with powder and closed it up. There's something of a hollow around the flash channel that obviously can't be filled with powder, and that always made me nervous about having "loosish" powder. Worried about barrel ringing is the issue.

I've never weighed the charge, or Chronographed the load either. So I don't know any specifics, other than it kicks pretty hard with a Maxi ball and FFFg. And I figured it'd be enough to kill a critter if I shot one. I hunted with it, but never killed a critter with it.

Would it be possible to make up paper cartridges that could just drop in there and have the block slice off the back end? It would seem to me that that's what they would have done back in the day, particularly for a combat application.

I've moved on to shooting more traditional ML'ers in the mean time, as, cleaning the Sharps involved a lot more disassembly to get at all the parts that got BP residue on them than a more traditional ML'er. I also imagine there is some gas leakage around where the block slides up too upon discharge. It's been at least 10 years since I last shot it though.
 
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If you are filling that chamber with powder I have no doubt it kicks. They shoot very well with 40 or 50 grains of 2 or 3f. Do not worry about an air space in the chamber causing damage. The Sharps was designed to be shot that way. Wrap the front of the breech area with toilet paper and you'll find out if it's leaking or not. Unlike some of the other copies out there a Shilo may take quite a while to develop a leak.

Yes you can make paper cartridges, the originals used paper or linen cartridges and there is a lot of info on the net on how to do it. I use Charlies tubes.
Paper Cartridge

"It was expensive then. I think I paid $225 for it as a used gun" That was a lot of $$ for a used gun back in the '70s. If you ever want to double your money let me know and you won't have to do all that work cleaning it either. :D ;)
 
The hollow area around the flash channel is part of the gas sealing design that is supposed to blow the sealing ring in the sliding breech block forward against the rear of the barrel. (It sometimes works and sometimes doesn't).
Don't be concerned about it causing rings in the barrel. There is no way in the world that small amount of looseness in the powder will do that unless, you have something else plugging up your barrel, some distance from the breech.
If you do have something stuck somewhere in the bore and you load and fire another ball thru the gun, that will bulge or blow up even the finest barrels.
 
Shiloh papercutters are rare as hen's teeth but loading loose powder isn't the way to go for number of reasons starting with how you are putting it in there. the real beauty of the paper cutter sharps were those made by another American company in the 70s.
 
I have a Model 1863 Shiloh .54 cal I bought back in the late `70's. It was expensive then. I think I paid $225 for it as a used gun, which was a lot at the time. I've never been too clear on the right way to shoot or load it. I've always just dropped the bullet in, (which seems to stick in the rifling) filled up the rest with powder and closed it up. There's something of a hollow around the flash channel that obviously can't be filled with powder, and that always made me nervous about having "loosish" powder. Worried about barrel ringing is the issue.

I've never weighed the charge, or Chronographed the load either. So I don't know any specifics, other than it kicks pretty hard with a Maxi ball and FFFg. And I figured it'd be enough to kill a critter if I shot one. I hunted with it, but never killed a critter with it.

Would it be possible to make up paper cartridges that could just drop in there and have the block slice off the back end? It would seem to me that that's what they would have done back in the day, particularly for a combat application.

I've moved on to shooting more traditional ML'ers in the mean time, as, cleaning the Sharps involved a lot more disassembly to get at all the parts that got BP residue on them than a more traditional ML'er. I also imagine there is some gas leakage around where the block slides up too upon discharge. It's been at least 10 years since I last shot it though.
Check out Charlie Hahn's tubes for the papercutter sharps. You can google him as he has a website. There is a big difference between Shiloh and Pedersoli Sharps rifles. The Shiloh's parts will fit an original rifle from the 1860s. And the Shiloh doesn't have the sliding seal in its chamber. Neither do the originals. I feel the Shiloh is well worth the extra money.
 
It probably leaks at least SOME. Without something that will obdurate to make the seal, (which is why cartridge cases are made out of a malleable material like brass) it's simply got to. All the other sort of similar designs do. I can think of Fergusons, Halls, Lorenzoni's, Kammerladers, and maybe some other Civil War era guns.
 
Maybe this thread isn’t the right place for this, but a long time ago I owned a ‘63 (as i recall) Shiloh cavalry carbine in .50. Serial number was 757. Sure would like to see it again if anyone happens to run across it.
 
I don
It probably leaks at least SOME. Without something that will obdurate to make the seal, (which is why cartridge cases are made out of a malleable material like brass) it's simply got to. All the other sort of similar designs do. I can think of Fergusons, Halls, Lorenzoni's, Kammerladers, and maybe some other Civil War era guns.

I don't know. I have an 1863 rifle in 45 and an 1863 carbine in 50 and do not see any signs of blowby at all. Both are Shilohs from the 1970's. Back in the day I had an Italian copy in 54 and that also had no blowby. Miss that gun, had double set trigger!
 
This looks like a good Thread to post a question. I recently won a Pedersoli Sharps Berdan Infantry Rifle in .54 from an auction. It was in new, unfired condition. Without test firing, I sent it to Charlie Hahn to do his fix. And I had him install a taller front sight. He returned the gun with a supply of his tubes. The tubes look like they would hold such a small powder charge (?) I haven't made one yet. But my question is: What is wrong with shooting the gun with loose powder ? Say about 60 grains of FFG ? There seems to be mention above that the air space in the breech is not an issue. Correct ?
Thanks for any help.

Rick
 
You sent your Sharps to the right person, he's done some extensive work to mine. An air space is no problem. With the bullet (as cast) I was shooting using his tubes I could only get 42 grains of 2f in the tube but the length of the tube you can use is determined by the style of bullet and it's size or basically how far into the barrel you can fit the bullet. BTW I was using paper bandage material to close the end of the tube.
 
Thanks Hawkeye.

I thought the tubes looked kind of small. 40 grains of FFG seems like a small load for a .54 I wonder if Charlie developed these tubes with the NSSA short carbine shooters in mind ?
But I still don't understand why you can't shoot loose powder and bullet ? Especially if the air space is not an issue.

Rick
 
You can shoot loose powder, no problem. It's just that we shoot for speed as well as accuracy so we don't do loose powder. There are 2 things with loose powder. One is getting it into the chamber easily without making a mess and the other is to avoid getting any of it into the cavity where the lever spring is. It can build up in there and a little leakage can ignite it blowing the forearm off. There are folks, mostly novices, who believe the chamber must be full and I understand where they are coming from as they have probably been told to never have an air space anywhere behind the projectile. Unfortunately some Sharps repros will hold 70 or more grains and the shooters are asking why they need their fillings replaced. Fowling builds up in the chamber and it had to be made large enough to allow for paper and linen cartridges, which can't be forced, to be loaded. My Shilo had the opposite problem in that the chamber was way too small and I had Charlie open it up. If I remember he said it was about 5/8" diameter now. His tubes are supposed to break up and the residue be blown out the muzzle but in my case it didn't happen and I have actually picked up tubes in front of the gun that I could have used again. The second part of the undersize chamber is that I could only reliably load 10 rounds without cleaning and now I have room for the fouling.

Yes Charlie developed the tubes primarily for N-SSA shooters. We shoot a lot of different breech loading carbines in competition and of all the Sharps has the most panache, like a Colt Navy, but it is also the most difficult to load for and his tubes are probably the easiest way to do that. If you go online you'll find countless ways to prepare cartridges. A lot of them work well but can be time consuming. You will find 40 grains to be close to the most accurate load for your gun and keep in mind that it will be the equivalent of the .44-40 Winchester round which has killed countless whitetails.
 
WOW !! Thanks Hawkeye for the comprehensive reply. Now I understand much better. Makes sense.
I find those brass hulls that Pedersoli makes quite alluring. But you apparently have to to order their special bullet mold for use with them. And I've heard they too don't hold much powder either (?)

Rick
 
Thanks Hawkeye.

I thought the tubes looked kind of small. 40 grains of FFG seems like a small load for a .54 I wonder if Charlie developed these tubes with the NSSA short carbine shooters in mind ?
But I still don't understand why you can't shoot loose powder and bullet ? Especially if the air space is not an issue.

Rick
I’m shooting mine 38 grains of 2ffg my tubes are 1.625 long w one bullet and 1.5 w another I use. I had to have Charlie open up the sleeve after 1 shot I could not load another tube nor would the tube shatter on exit. Some would stick in the chamber some in the barrel. Not a good thing especially in N-SSa team events.
Your tube length is determined by your chamber length bullet design combo.
Did Charlie have your gun and sample of bullet? If not he may have just sent a Short sample tube.
Seat a bullet then measurement to Charlie for proper fit.
 
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Hi 59sharps

Thanks for your reply. No, he sent me a bag of 500 (which I ordered). He mentioned it was the right size for my chamber. I did not send a bullet sample. I'm sure these tubes will work with the bullet Charlie recommended. It just seems like such a light powder charge. Maybe that's all it takes for accuracy (?). To start with, I thought I would just order a few of those Sharps bullets and some SPG lube from TOTW and try it out with loose powder (maybe 50-60 grains of FFG). My .577 Enfield shoots well with the 60grains of FFG. Then move in to making cartridges.
Thanks for ALL the good advice.

One more question: I've heard that not all brands of musket caps work well with these Sharps. But there is apparently one brand that does ?

Rick
 

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