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Last Tuesday nite a bud called up and told me of a upcoming auction. He said I needed to.preview it as it had lots of antique cartridges. So I get over there and their was a whole display of original Sharps rifle cartridges from the 1870's. Neat, double neat cause.it had a bunch I was looking for. Depending on the cartridge they will bring a hundred a piece or more sometimes less. Auctioneer wanted to sell.piece by.piece. so I get in there early and registered . An hr after it starts the shells come up his assistant lays them out. The auctioneer started at $5 ea. Your choice I bid then 7.50 another bids up to $10 I bid everyone else quit. So I got my choice at $10 ea. Auctioneer says how many you want? I laughed and said all of them. Judging by the groans more that a few figure on getting some for less on subsequent bids.i bought the glass topped case for $5 to. About 326 with sales tax. What a day. Mb

Bob,
Here is the collection I had. I was fortunate to buy most of them from an old gentleman for $500.00.
The complete collection cost me around $625.oo
I sold it to a guy in Hartford Connecticut for $1500.oo (I like to think it went back home), so I would say you got a bargain.
I have seen the 50/140 paper patched sell for north of $300.oo, even though it was not an originally a Sharps cartridge. The 50/70 is also a hard one to come by.
Chris

Nice display. Mb

Congrats MB, Kirk out at Shiloh sent Bill an original 45-110 pp round he came up with, Bill peeled the paper LOL, and had two molds made for that bullet, he gave me one, i shoot it in both my original '74's in 45-110, fun stuff Sir.

Damn nice display Cab!

Cab1958, I have the very same poster of Sharps cartridges. I've allways wondered of it's accuracy. I've never seen a references to a 2 3/4" 45 case round at all. The 44-66 appears to be a miss label from the 44-60 which I got several of in that collection yesterday. None the less it's still informative and useful.
Gunner500 was.that the 500 gr fn ppb or the 550gr fn ppb? Mb

Hey Bob, it's a 500gr parallel sided round nose paper patch bullet, naked bullet is .442 inch, patches up to .450 inch with SC 55 paper, iirc the guy out at Buffalo Arms came up with a case of the original ammunition the Sharps factory sent out to the Buffalo hunters, it was loaded with 100gr FG powder, two card wads and a 3/16th grease cookie.

I load my two old rifles with 100gr Goex Express FG, Bill gave me 8 one pound cans.

Hey gunner that load will get her done. I use a .442" patched with 9lb onion skin in my 45-70's out to 1000 with 1.5 fg swiss same wadding scenario. I have a .440" adj mold I use at 540 grains patched with vellum in my 110 and fg same wad setup good to a mile. No end to the combos.a guy can use to get results. Got a new Hartford coming in the next 2 mths in 44/77 with its share of bling. Prolly got carried away but I wanted to get one that looked like something one of those guys in the 1870's who had more money than sense would order. Will see looking forward to it..mb

Bob,


Sometime when you get a chance would you measure the patched bullet diameter for the .44's and .40 if you have them in that collection please.
Also if you would measure the diameter at the start of the ogive and the wrapped at this point. curious with the double wrap thickness is.

They used a lot of rag (bank note) paper in those days.
Kurt

Hey Kurt, as follows

1 40-50sbn .400" .404 and at neck .407

3 40-90 sbn 2 5/8"
#1 umc .391" .399 .404
#2 umc .391 .397 .403
Wra .391".396 .406

3 40-90 3.25" ss
Umc .391 - .404
Umc .391 .398 .401
Wra .385 .396 .402

44-77 sbn
Umc 405 gr .422 .430 .439
Umc 470gr .416 .430 .436

44-90 Remington special 2.42" case bn
520 gr ppb Creedmoor bullet
.435 .443 .446

The 44/60's all had greasers.bob

Bob when you get your 44 might give this bullet some thought. I asked Dave to build it, and it works really well. I cast it 16-1, but I would imagine 20-1 would work pretty good too. 83 grains OE 1 f and a single thick wad.
https://www.buffaloarms.com/454-540-grain-eliptical-pp-jim438470.html

Another good one is have Brooks build a dual diameter .435 at the base and .432 at the base of the nose.With his original postel nose profile. That one likes either 1 1/2 or 2f.

TNX. Bob.

I been searching for the paper thickness in the Library of Congress for what they used for paper during the matches during the creedmoor years but I never found the actual thickness. It mentions thin rag paper but to this day I have not found the actual thickness.

Kurt, last 44-105-520 creedmoor round I pulled down was .005" 2 wraps mighty thin. Got to remember that those original rifles had. 0025" rifling though. Mb

Don, I have 2 44 ppb molds I'll try first before I buy any thank you anyway..mb

have fun with that new 44, it's a good cartridge and easy to see why with the exception of the military 45-70's was the most chambered by Sharps.

You know I will, I ordered it with a long staff Lawrence military rear barrel sight. I actually forgot I have a.lyman block Tom Ballard cut .430 adjustable ppb mold as well as a .431 original style rn adj Kal tool mold and a 44 tgbs adj at .431 also. I scored 9 boxes of Jamison brass and have some from baco they made from 348 ww and some made from 50-110 starline. Have enough.powder to get me through. I am betting the tgbs at about 470 grs around 1.25" to 1.30" will be the tits. Of course I could stick a MVA tang on it and a shaver up frt but I have plenty of target rifles. This one is mostly to be used with barrel sights and gong shoots. I figure 140 years ago them buffalo hunters mostly used barrel sights and a 140 years later this old guy don't figure he will do worse..mb

You might want to anneal the snot out of those 348 cases, dang things are hard, at least the ones I had were. Haven't had a chance to run any of the reformed 50-110, but Jim Kluskens sure liked it.
I found 434 best when shooting a straight sided bullet.
1.1 inch bullets work real well for hunting and such out to around 600 yards. 1.3 is a good do it all length. Once you get past 1.32 crosswinds can raise holy ned past 700 yards
Straight sided bullets aren't as picky about powder and anything from 2-1 F work. Still have a bunch of Cartridge on hand, but the velocity is pretty low compared to OE, but it does shoot well.
You might also find there's a bunch of that long sight left over even getting to 1000, but a little extra never hurts. I run an MVA midrange with the Baldwin front when shooting target rifle and still have plenty of elevation to account for some pretty stiff head winds.
If the drawing gods are with me this year, I'll take my #1 fitted with one of Stephens' Hartford front sights after moose.

Bob,

That .44-77 will be a fine ride.
The one on the photo below took two bisons with the bullet shown. I sent Steve Brooks the bullet in this original UMC .44-77 to make a clone from it and it took three bisons. The first with the .44-90BN and two with the .44-77.
I had Steve make it adjustable because the original bullet was 1-1/8" long with a cup base like the original. The cup base had the twisted tail tugged inane was flat from the .030" card under it plus a lube wad that was dried out.
By the way, this bullet had paper .023" thick.
I used a little heavier bullet at 485 gr in the 19 twist Shilohs.

Just dont shoot him behind the ear if you plan on mounting the head.

That one the 405?.mb

I don't remember the exact weight Bob but I think it was 400 gr.

That's what Rywell says 1 1/8" 405 grs. The original load was 44-70-385 then UMC bumped to 44-75-405. Then some other bullet weights were offered. As I understand it the change to 77 was in name only. As far as case capacity goes will have to wait and see , Don mentioned 83 grs of Olde E fg I don't know yet how much my unfireformed brass will hold. Cases out of most modern 44-77 chambers seem more angular at the shoulders than the originals and look larger in diameter. Which would mean more case capacity. At one time I loaded some 44-77 ppb loads for a friend I don't remember the brand of brass but it was fireformed in a original Hartford sporting rifle and it took 73 grs of fg goex to the middle of the neck. I was shooting for that original load spec. With no desire for rodding it , makes a guy nervous enough to have in his possession a historical provenance Sharps that was used in the southern herd hunt. A very valuable rifle that cost 17k. I've seen barrels that are in better condition but it made 2" groups at 50yds easy enough. Now I'll have my own to mess with. I look at that rn 405 as a mainstay if it shoots for hunting and get another weight around 450 at < 1.30" for targets. Mb

77 grs of OE 1 1/2 with a .030 fiber wad and 1/8 in felt wad under a 1.1 inch patched bullet will go over the chrono at the claimed original velocity. Makes one think the modern 1 1/2 designation probably a lot closer to the 1f of back in the day. 83 of OE 1f fills the case to just enough room to seat the wad and then compress enough to seat the bullet.
The original bullet sent to me from a pull down 44-77 creedmoor load is a tapered bullet with .438 diameter, 1.3 inches in length and weighs 460 grains. You can see on the bullet that it was seated about 1/2 inch deep into the case.
Putting a new unfired loaded round into the Shiloh chamber and then firing, what comes out makes you think you're fire forming modern ackley improved.. LOL