Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk with a sharps!

if you ever get a wild hair to make a copy of that DVD id love to watch it

The buckhorn from C. Sharps is not the one to have. Leave it alone.

U have a suggestion as to where to get one from?

Check your PM and call me.

45/70 and elk are like peas and carrots

sharpsguy got me squared away. Time to start practicing. Ya'll can post some sharps elk pics if you want though.

Killed a 6x6 bull at 213 lasered yards with my Marlin .45-70 and a 350g North Fork FP launched at 2181fps. The bullet obliterated sections of the left front leg and near rib, shattered a far rib and came to rest under the hide. The bull never took a step. The day before I had killed a nice buck at 197 lasered yards, quartering away. Bullet exited and the fresh snow looked like someone had sloshed blood out of a bucket. The buck made a tight circle, took a few steps and went down forever.

Take your Sharps and have fun. Don't forget a sharp knife.

Sounds like an exciting hunt! Doing it with a Sharps will make it so much more special.

I have shot plenty and seen more big game shot with Sharps cartridges and people seem to think that these big bullets will knock a big animal down. Unless you brain or spine them, they won't go down right away. I have shot more than 70 elk with a 30-06 and 300 WBY, and continue to hunt elk with those cartridges as I don't want to lose an elk.

This buffalo was 4 shoots and all but one passed completely through with 500 grain bullets. The lst shot was in the back of the head with a 405 grain hard cast...

I'll be trying for cow elk this fall with a Sharps rifle and paper patch ammo, haven't decided which cartridge to use yet, shot a bedded 1800 lb bull Eland in the right ham in Africa last November at 60 yards with my 50-90 Sharps and a 750 gr grease groove bullet, he dropped his head and never moved after the shot, the skinner handed me the bullet from his left shoulder, near 9 feet of penetration, the bullet still weighs 743 grains, I was floored with that level of straight line penetration.

Busted a big old blue/black Sable bull at 99 yards too, bullet blew through him like he was made from a sheet of notebook paper.

Thats my plan gunner. Go after a cow or spike and maybe try and sneak in a mulie. Mr Bill got me squared away. Was on vac in mtns chasing trout and had to rush to ER yest morning with what turned out to be gall stones. Now laying in hospital after surgery. Gonna have a week or so off work so itll be time i can do some reloading

Holy Damn! and happy healing Phoneman, hope your stitching holds up and heals in time for elk season.

I have not used a Sharps for elk but, have used my Browning B-78 .45/70 for several. The load I used was a lead 510 gr. paper patched bullet running 1650 fps. The elk either dropped at the shot or made 5 or 6 steps Although that load worked very well still, I thought the bullet should have exited on broadside shots. Were I to do it again, I would maybe get the hardness up to around 12 bhn for more penetration but, since it ain't broke.......
Here is a pic of the load and two recovered bullets from different elk.

Yup, it's just a matter of knowing your limitations with the rifle.

Ranch, what kind of Sharps was that and what caliber??

When sharpsguy speaks Sharps and bullets, consider him as "The Oracle At Delphi." He kindly invited me to his place a few years ago. I didn't know sheitfromshinola about Sharps, black podwer, paper patch bullets, etc. Within about half an hour, he had me hitting his steel ram...at five hundred yards with ladder sights and one of his copper penny front sights he affixed to my rifle. The next year I went buffler hunting with Evil Twin (who gave me the rifle as a retirement gift) and Doc Rocket in Wyoming. It was a classic hunt and a classic scene, right out of the 1870s. I lined this one up at a lazered 92 yards and shot him with a 485gr Parker Hale greaser. When I came off recoil, all I saw were four legs up in the air.

Jorge, Mr Bill and I have talked several times over the past few weeks about sharps and life and all sorts of things. He extended the same offer and I hope that maybe I can extend an AR duck hunting weekend a little further and head to texas and take him up on the offer. Its pretty awesome when someone is passionate about something and is willing to extend their knowledge to a newbie like myself. I hadn't had a chance to really try out the stuff he told me since I had emergency gall bladder surgery right after I talked with him the first time and didn't wanna rip something open. Just been keeping in practice with the old 22's. I gotta say, I do love the site and hope to one day make one of ya'lls meetups.

You will learn more from Bill in one hour than you will anywhere else in ten years.

Its a Taylors I bought about 20 years ago. It's typical Italian, has a very long chamber, so while it's stamped 45-70 it needs a case 2.25 or longer.
The load that it uses best is 85 grains of 1f with a 500-540 gr paper patch bullet.
Poor little raghorn dang near beat his shadow to the ground when that chuck of lead hit him about 204 yards from the muzzle.