Big bore , big boom, much smoke, long range

[Marshal Deadwood]

Been looking at the Sharpes, and the '85 Hi Wall.

Thats a heck of a decison,,

Ya'll got perferences,,,,and stuff a guy might need to know if considering a big bore ?

Best calibre,,or most ,,,perfered today ?

Barrel lenght of importance ,,say between 30 vrs 32.

Lock,,,side lock sharpes or center line '85 ?

Just blast away (pun) with ya perferences likes and dislikes ya'll,,,,id appreciate it.

Marshal Deadwood

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

First of all, as to caliber. If you want a big bore caliber, I cannot recommend the 45-70 highly enough for your first outing into the large calibers. Components are more easily available, and cheaper, for 45-70 than any of the other large calibers, and there has probably been more written about milking performance and accuracy out of the 45-70 than all the other big calibers combined. Sometimes newcomers to the big single shot calibers get a dose of too much testosterone and think that if the 45-70 is good, the 45-90, 45-110, or 45-120 must be even better. Or sometimes they just want to be different and not have a 45-70 like everybody else. If you read Mike Venturino's book, Shooting Buffalo Rifles of the Old West,

http://www.ycsi.net/users/mlventurino/buffalogun.htm

you will see that is exactly what he recommends. Start with the 45-70, move onto the other calibers after you have gotten 450-70 under your belt. A buddy of mine has a Sharpes chambered for 45-120. He pays almost $2 for each case. If you are going to be shooting Smokeless in your rifle, the extra capacity of the larger cases is totally wasted. If you filled them up with powder, you would probably destroy the gun. If you are considering shooting BP, everything has been totally reserached for milking accuracy out of the 45-70. All you have to do is follow the instructions.

As to what type of lock you want, it is entirely up to you. I chose a Sharps because I just liked the idea. A Sharps probably has a slightly longer lock time than a more modern design like the WInchester 1885 (Highwall) or a Rollng Block. I just liked the idea of the Sharps. I knew I wanted a double set trigger, and double set triggers are pretty common on Sharps rifles. They are fairly rare on anything else.

With the Single shot rifles, actual barrel length is not terribly important. What is important is how much the gun weighs, and that is related not so much to how long the barrel is but how heavy it is. In some of the Black Powder Cartridge Rifle there are weight limits, so the overall weight of the gun may define if you can use it or not.

One other thing. Think about what kind of a buttstock you want. I purposely chose a 'shotgun' style buttstock on my Sharps, rather than the more traditional Crescent style buttstock. A Crescent style butt stock requires slightly different placement on the shoulder to prevent the points from digging into the meat of the shoulder on recoil. I shoot crescent buttplates in all my CAS rifles, but for my Sharps, and the 45-70 caliber, I decided to go with a shotgun style butt plate. Even so, during the summer, with just a thin cotton shirt between me and the buttstock, after 40 or so rounds of 400 grain 45-70 ammo, my shoulder starts to get a little bit sore.

In sharps style rifles, there are 2 American made rifles. There is the Shiloh Sharps, and there is the C. Sharps. Very fine rifles, and very expensive. There is quite a waiting list for them too. Then there are the Italian replicas. I chose a Pedersoli Silhouette model for my own Sharps. A plain walnut stock with a pistol grip, shotgun style buttplate, double set triggers, and 30" heavy barrel chambered for 45-70. I bought it through Dixie. They have periodic deep discounts on selected models, so it pays to watch their website. I saved about $200 over the regular price on my Sharps.

There are fancier grades of Pedersolis made, but to tell you the truth, I have not been impressed with the workmanship of the details of the fancier grades, so I chose a plainer model, rather than be dissatisfied with poor execution of fancy details.

By the way, the Venturino book is an excellent primer on the different types of Single Shot rifles, the cartridges, and how to load them. But he does not mention Smokeless loads in them, all his loading data is for Black Powder.