Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Visit to C. Sharps Arms

Recently helping my brother move from DC area to his retirement home in WA State. Managed to get him out of "road march" mode (he was a tanker for 32 years) and stopped at C. Sharps Arms in Big Timber, MT, which is right off I-90. Very interesting visit. They acted like we might be customers and gave us the deelux tour (I called ahead and asked on my cell phone) and let us handle all their various models and finishes of single shots: Sharps '74, Sharps '75, and "Winchester" Hiwall 1885s.

The tour was excellent; a very knowledgeable female employee (who runs the turning center) showed us all the steps from bar stock to finished product and answered every question I asked, including stuff that many manufacturers won't answer like what parts/processes are outsourced and where and why. (Their '74 and Hiwall recievers are machined from forgings, for example, but the '75 recievers are investment cast like Ruger #1s at Ruger's subsidiary, Pine Tree Casting, where I got the tour in 2002. That may be why the '75s are a little cheaper.) When she didn't know the answer to a question, she asked the responsible craftsman.

I liked that they use the scrap pieces from the reciever forgings to make the smaller parts. Thrifty, just like the old timers were, and we should all be. They also sell walnut scrap from the stocking room in the showroom for $1-4 a piece. Some of it looks like dessert, and makes great pistol grips, forends, or knife scales. They also sell all the books relevant to single shot rifles and all the accessories for reloading and shooting.

This visit was the high point of my trip and I'm going to buy a C.Sharps Hiwall once I can figure out which caliber to order. Wish I could have gone to Shiloh Sharps right across the street, but they don't make Hiwalls and my bro, who only likes John Browning's designs post-1911 anyway (especially the Ma Duece), said "Saddle Up!" and into the truck we went and off west! (His truck, his dime, his retirement--that all adds up to "Yessir!" as far as I'm concerned).

We also stopped at the Custer Battlefield and my bro, who used to teach military history at West Point, gave me the tour. A sad place, but very worth seeing. If you've never driven from coast to coast, do it.

Must have been one heck of a nice tour. Those rifles are beautiful...

I was impressed by the "1875" Sharps; they make a nice compromise between the "Little Sharps" '74s made in Italy and a full-sized '74. Heavy enough to handle some "buffalo" rounds without destroying your shoulder but much more compact than a '74. Since I like Ruger #1s, the investment cast reciever doesn't bother me a bit. But I'm still gettin' a Hiwall.

I know of a 1875 for sale. It's in .45x2 1/4, I think. 95%+.

Anyone know what it would be worth?

I've also visited the factory. But, it's been a few years. Nice folks, quality product, great country (Big Twig).

I think MSRP for a new one (a plain "Business Rifle") is $1350. But you have to wait 6-12 weeks for them to finish the gun to your specs. Depends what bells and whistles were ordered on top of the basic rifle, plus any that were added aftermarket. You can download their catalog to find out what each added feature cost new, then work (down, I think) from there.

That's a .45-90, isn't it? 'Way more gun than I need, but good for silhouette, BIG game, etc.

Thanks for an interesting post! I have long been wanting to go on a driving tour through parts of the West, my last having been in 1990, before I was interested in buffalo rifles. Inclusion of the Shiloh factory has long been part of the dream, and seeing that C. Sharps does tours adds to the appeal of a stop in Big Timber.

I very nearly layawayed a pre-owned 1875 C. Sharps a year or two ago, but while examining it, found a problem in the action. The shop sent it in for repair, though I don't know if it went to C. Sharps or to a local gunsmith. I inquired a few times to see if it had come back, but nobody seemd to remember it being sent out, so I don't know what became of that rifle. That is one drawback of a large shop; so much division of labor that it becomes difficult to check on things like that.

They have a couple of really nice highwalls ready to run, one is a 45-70 and the other 38-55. They have some more but these two were the ones that caught my eye.
In the 74's they have a Hartford in 45-70 that'll give you a woody, and the price was right at 2300
They also have a good number of 75's available. I shoot a 75 and like it quite a bit. It's not a highwall, and its not a sharps, but I'm thinkin ol JMB may have borrowed the basic design to get his 85.
Check out the available list at their web site for the rifles ready for immediate shipment.

I'm ordering a .44-40 Hiwall with a 26" part octagon barrel and no rear dovetail cut. Everything else is stock, including the "shotgun" buttstock. I don't need a cannon but do need something I can shoot on indoor ranges when I feel like it and can handload with easily available bullets, including no-lead (I live in CA, you know--home of the condor and the rest of us saps....).

I've had two .44-40 revolvers for ever, a 4 3/4" Bisley I bought in Mexico in the early 1960s and a 7 1/2" New Service I inherited from my granddad, but no rifle for a long time. Have all the fixin's to reload. I will probably have to keep the Colt reloads separate from the C. Sharps because a C.Sharps .44-40 has .429 bore and both of my Colts are .427. But that's OK; if I ever take the Hiwall deer/pig hunting, I can load .44 Mag bullets and just duplicate the old WHV loads. Possibly even load the Leverevolution .44s (Have they released bullets for handloaders yet?).

You gotta watch that '75, they like to discharge on their own. We had a Cowboy Shoot the week before last with a couple long range targets. One shooter had a C. Sharps '75 and when he loaded it, closed the action..."Boom" we were all caught off guard. Good thing he had it pointed down at the ground as it blew a nice furrow in the dirt about 5 feet in front of the shooter.

If you went to C. Sharps by way of the main drive in Big Timber, you passed the best rifle builder in all of Montana and maybe even USA, as Shiloh is first on your right on the way to C. Sharps. They would have been a great second stop and you would have liked what you saw even more!

[quote=shrapnelYou gotta watch that '75, they like to discharge on their own. We had a Cowboy Shoot the week before last with a couple long range targets. One shooter had a C. Sharps '75 and when he loaded it, closed the action..."Boom" we were all caught off guard. Good thing he had it pointed down at the ground as it blew a nice furrow in the dirt about 5 feet in front of the shooter.

[/quote]

One accidental discharge (probably the shooter screwed up) shouldn't condemn the whole lot of those rifles. Several thousand rounds down range thru mine and nothing of that sort has happened. Know of a handful more of them that have never had that problem and they too have been run pretty hard.
Did have a transfer bar problem, but that just a design flaw of the thing.

Shrapnel, I would have stopped at Shiloh but was pressed for time (my brother believes still in the blitzkrieg approach to everything) and not really there for Sharps '74s, or any Sharps for that matter. Main interest was getting a Win 1885 so I can put a couple of mine out to pasture; they are getting too pricey and scarce to do load experiments on 'em or take 'em out in the baldies (which out here are the pedregadas==stonies). If we'd been on my lazy-ass schedule, I'd definitely have stopped at Shilo.

Hammer guns can "jar off" the sear notch. Older designss don't have any safety device to keep them from firing. I suspect the shooter of that '75 may have had the trigger set or adjusted too light. But he did the main thing RIGHT --controlled that muzzle.

When I said "They" I mean more than one. C. Sharps '75's tend to discharge without provocation. At first I figured the guy had stuck his finger on the trigger when he closed the breach. We looked the gun over and every time you would cock the hammer before you opened the breach, it would drop the hammer upon closing the breach.

One thing you never do with a Sharps is open or close the breach without first taking the hammer off the firing pin. Cocking the gun should be a safe exercise, but not with quite a few of these guns.

I have no dog in this fight, but I have observed first hand the malfunction of this particular gun, and upon research have found this problem to be far from remote.

I can't say as I have heard of any problems with their 1885's, I have handled a number of their 74's and find them quite well made. They also have a good reputation for shooting as well.

I just think it was too bad on your whirlwind tour of Big Timber, that you couldn't have stopped at Shiloh. They are great people that make the finest in firearms.

The bullshit flag is still out there. The hammer and the breechblock on a 75 sharps are in no way connected. So if you really have seen one do that, its likely something to do with some ham handed gunparts changer wanna be prickin around with the sear. There's no other way than the sear is broken or something has been pricked with , that the hammer will dump when closing the breechblock.

Does it really matter what is wrong? The C. Sharps '75 has a tendency to drop the hammer when closing the breach block. Nothing more, nothing less. What percentage of failure, I can't answer that, it just happens to more than they should be letting out of the factory.

This gun I observed was new. So I guess your B.S. flag should be raised at the factory with ham handed personnel assembling and building these...

Yes it really matters, you're passing out false bullshit, for no other reason than to try and slam C Sharps.
As I stated I own a 75 have run thousands or rounds thru it and have never had the hammer drop unless and until the trigger was pulled. I am also well aquainted with several other 75's and none of them have any problem such as you described.

Now I realize theres a crowd of you folks that don't like John S. Thats fine, but if you're going to try and slander him or his products you ought to be using something real , and not this backbitin bitch bullshit you're trying to pull right now.
Name me one person in the bpcr industry that provides more prize incentives to junior shooters all across the USA. There's not many people that put more into promoting the Creedmore matches than John.
Does he have his faults? Probably, but I've yet to experience them.

The old fight that erupted when the big split came almost THIRTY years ago needs to stop and it needs to stop now, it's over it's done and one of the parties to it is dead. Let it rest, and for godsakes quit with the false information.

O.K. Mr. poopy face, you win. Nothing happened or has happened with the '75's.

If you could get your mom to read my posts to you one more time, you will see I haven't been slamming John or C. Sharps. I have only made the comment to the effect that there have been more than one instances of dropped hammers that weren't the fault of the shooter.

Having been around firearms as a serious competitive shooter, gunsmith, and engineer for half a century, I have come to the conclusion that, there is no such thing as an 'accidental discharge'.

In reality it's just one of two things :-

A. Bad or unsafe gun handling. This can be corrected by training or instruction, if the 'Bubba' concerned is willing to learn. Sadly not all are.

Or,

B. An unsafe firearm. This can be the result of an error in manufacture (unlikely as it should be picked up by the factory inspectors) or by unqualified or untrained persons making adjustments (usually to the sear/hammer notch) to obtain a better trigger pull, or an old weapon with worn out parts.

Any weapon that discharges on closing the action on a live round is in urgent need of attention by a qualified gunsmith as the weapon is clearly unsafe. Certainly it will cost a few dollars/pounds to get the fault corrected, but it will be chicken feed compared to the damages you may be forced by the courts to pay, if someone is killed or injured by such an unsafe firearm.

Harry

Got my 1885 about a month ago. Finish is great; the wood (I ordered the standard wood) is as good as or better than an original Winchester--very nice.

But it wouldn't fire. That is, the hammer would cock when the block was dropped, but the trigger wouldn't drop the hammer. Worse, when the block was closed about 1/5 of the way, the hammer would fall. I'm not sure if the rifle would have fired a loaded cartrideg and I didn't experiment with it, just sent it back for warranty work ASAP.

I just got it back last night and all functions fine; a note from the boss man at C.Sharps was enclosed, apologising for the inconvenience. They also shipped it back to me by air, which I very much appreciate.

Put the sights on it last night and took it to the range today for a test run, breaking the barrel in with jacketed bullets like the factory instructions tell you to. The range was only 50 yards, so no real test of accuracy, but I could make all of the three-shot groups touch, many of them made "three-leaf clovers." That was with Winchester factory stuff, which is a bit undersized for the Badger barrel (a tiny bit). I'll post later when I get some handloads and a longer range.

Curious,

is that rifle equipped with the single set trigger?

Thanks, and best regards.

GTC

No, Crossfire, it has the standard trigger.

One thing I like about the C.Sharps version is that while it DOES have the coil-spring action (I prefer the original flat-spring version, but it has gotta be more expensive to produce), it DOESN'T have that wierd "fly" that drops the hammer to half-cock when the lever is closed. So you can reload it just as fast as a Martini or a Ruger #1 (which is pretty fast when you're excited!). Basically the same loading sequence, which I like since I use '85s and #1s and one Martini for hunting.