Home Forums Hunting & Shooting BPCR Hey Dark Side. Pedersoli 1874 Sharps Silhouette...

Reasonable Rifle?

If I just happen to find one with the spirit bubble front, and what I think is pedey's long range creedmore



and it looks barely used, what would one think is a reasonable price?

Why the spirit level front????? What caliber???

45-70.

As far as why the spirit bubble sight, don't know. Consignment gun. Previous owner had it on there. My guess is he planned on a lot of target shooting that never happened.

Not saying I want it with a bubble - that's just how I found it

He also has an old Remington Roller rebarreled to 38-55, and a 1st class 45 cal underhammer, both of which look great, but I'm keeping my distance for the time being, because I could do some serious damage to the bank account there.

See if you could learn how many rounds out. Not likely you'd be able to do a bore inspection. 1,200 is in the neighborhood.

Gents: the sprit level indicates if the shooter cants the rifle right or left. That is not shouldering the rifle level.

From what I have observed, once shooting beyond 300 or so yards, the cant will effect bullet strike on the target. Depending upon the range and degree of cant, the shooter could run out of wind adjustment on the front or rear sight.

Shiloh and C. Sharps are the best you can get. The bottom of the barrel are the old Garrett's and EMF's made by Armi. Pedersoli makes one that is a step up from the bottom and a step below the USA made guns. They are decent guns that are not in the class of a Shiloh. I've owned two of them.

There are currently seven Pedersoli's for sale on GunBroker ranging in asking price from $950 to $1895. Five are 45-70's. Only one has a bid on it of $100 IIRC.

IMO retail would be $1000. $600 wholesale.

$800 be plenty..

Their quality has been all OVER the map, for the last 22-23 years that I've looked at and worked on em'.
The "Silhouette Models", if one built during Dick Trenk's "Team Pedersoli" era had EXCEPTIONAL barrels, and were tighter chambered than the rest of their production...the ones with barrels polished out on the "Gum Machine".That said, the MAJORITY of em' before were pretty rough,...and some of the ones since absolutely pathetic.
If you feel an urge to pay ridiculous prices, be treated rudely, and wait forever for "their supposed to be on the next shipment" parts, that may or very well may NOT fit, ...by all means go with a Pedersoli, and deal with their current U.S. "distributors".
Get on the phone with Shilo, and pretty quick it's like your talking to old friends, and all of a sudden the spare parts minefield becomes a fragrant meadow.
Ditto C. Sharps, and other U.S. houses.


That said their FORGED steel frames, and unreliably and oftimes SLOPPILY fitted guts , locks etc. CAN be worked up into a good, repeatably accurate BPCR. Used ones, broken, and dirt cheap are the sensible source,...no WAY I'd buy anything new from em'.

GTC

Read and heed.

Crossfire knows whereof he speaks.

Something to keep in mind is that the Italians have a history of marketing to the "Ain't it cool" customers, with some exceptions as Cross has noted. So you see flossy exteriors with "engraving", etc. but poorly executed innards.

Caveat emptor.

Paul

I've sure gotten a kick out of the "what's the spirit level all about" comments....

neglected to comment that the Pedersoli staff sight on the rifle pictured is a stand off replica of an original, with Italian "artistic" licence screaming at one from all corners, I kinda' LOOKS like an original Sharps sight, but that's all.

....one must loosen the eyecup to tweak the elevation, and in so doing, the artisans have cleverly set the thing up to go off windage zero / setting. The lash in the elevation lead screw is pretty embarrassing, and one best forget, "come up just a whisker. In a kind word,... WORTHLESS for long range precision, as are most of the rest of their Staff sights, including that overpriced "Creedmoor Soule Style" abortion the spaghetti benders are so proud of.

It's quite something, the scorn with which decent staff sights are sometimes held by the North eastern / Eastern "Dark Side" troops,...I wish they'd come out West here and have a friendly 500 M match with their Barrel sights. Once they've whipped our azzes, and taken our money, maybe they'll be kind enough to put on a clinic, and we'll be able to remove our MVA, Kelly and Hoke rubbish from our guns.

GTC

That would be about right dittos.

Prices on C Sharps 1875's are pretty reasonable, I think I'd go that route rather than a new Pedersoli. There's a couple on GB right now that are good deals, but I have no immediate need for a .32-40, or a .45-70

In my youth I swapped for one of the Pedersoli Rolling Blocks in .45-70, the one with a 30" untapered octagon bull barrel. It shot pretty well, and I shot some ~1" groups with it at 100 yards, with the big 400gr Speers(pardon the heresy ). It seemed to have a good barrel, but I recall slop in the breechblock when it was locked up. So I think the action machining was only fair.

Thanks for all the wisdom...

There's a 45 cal short barrel fast twist underhammer in the shop as well.

I was thinking hard about that, but I have a double set trigger assembly sitting on my dresser that is screaming for another home build..

When you finally offer $1k for the underhammer and the Sharps, you'll own them both.

That next build could EASILY be a roundball twist .36 caliber for squirrels and such, seeing as how your .32 is a fast twist for crazy long conicals. Or, and underhammer smoothbore... say, .62 caliber?

there is nothing wrong with shooting squirrels with crazy long conicals.

I notice you avoided the concept of an underhammer smoothbore.

You could, of course, pick up the underhammer, build another on that action, come out money ahead for the time being and STILL be killing stuff with very cool, unique guns off the porch.

Just a thought.

smoothbores are for people that can't afford rifling.

Then do a .62 roundball twist on that action at the house, buy the .45, and thump stuff.

You still need a very light, short roundball twist underhammer in .36 caliber as a "grandkid's rifle".

the 32 only weighs about 4.5 pounds, but you need a freaking lever to start the bullet....

Mmmmhhhhmmmm....

well I stopped by to look at the Pedersoli again, (tapered barrel, by the way) and the 45 cal underhammer followed me home.

You have done well, old (and short) one....

why do they make underhammer thingies? seems upside down

They make them upside down so they burn holes in your shirt sleeves.

Kurt

heathens

Dunno about the light weight field grade underhammer guns, but the large bore bench guns from back in the day trended toward underhammer and side hammer locks because the conventional back action or side action cap lock had difficulty digesting 200-250 grains of powder in a genteel fashion. Guessing it had something to do with male vanity and not wanting a random BP tattoo on the face?

Indeed.

MOST Sharps rifles had a "tapered" barrel.

The Pedersoli "Silhouette" should sport a barrel just a whisker SCANT of the standard "#1 Heavy" profile.

Gotta agree with Ranch,....that would be a VERY reasonable buy at $800.
Properly tuned and run in,....AND with real sights, it will shoot right in there with any and all the rest.

Alla' this predicated on the thing being from that "Pedersoli Challenge"
era,....the quality really went (back) in the toilet after Dick Trenk's untimely passing.

GTC

C'mon, man re-tell that Large vent / burnt trousers yarn !

GTC

Just spent awhile in fruitless search of the original article to no avail.

The essence of the tale, or is it tail??? is that Lester Cox, if memory serves, was working with an old slug gun at a range one day and among other things had relieved the dimension of the orifice for the clean out screw. Apparently he had neglected to replace the screw after servicing the gun as well.

Anyone that has ever been around those old cannons will tell you they do everything in a big way, as in BIG bullets driven by staggering amounts of black powder. For example, the H.V. Perry gun pictured above is of .56 caliber and uses a two piece swagged bullet of 1300 grains over about 250 grains of BP. They make thunder...

Anyway, ol' Lester touched off his next shot as the fellow at the adjacent bench was bent over his own rifle and pointing his butt at Lester. The boom was accompanied by a rather copious venting of fire out the right side which conveniently enough was aligned with the poor old fella's left cheek. Burned a hole right thru his overalls and provided a profound motivational lesson right there on the spot. He jumped, screeched, ran around in circles trying to put the smouldering embers out on his backside, and well, I'm not clear at this time exactly how it all ended other than the fact the gun was christened with a new name. It was thereafter known as "Old Butt Burner".