Mule Deer With An Original Buffalo Sharps

[Kirk Stovall]

I’ve had this gun for quite awhile and spent time and money trying to get it to shoot paper patch bullets. After giving up on that, I have some 40 caliber bullets I shoot in my 40-65’s and tried those.

Holy crap, I could shoot gophers with it. I wanted to kill a deer with it this fall and got a nice mule deer buck at about 120 yards…

[Dan O]

Nice buck! What bullet did you use and did you recover it?

[Kirk Stovall]

265 grain grease groove. The deer wasn’t able to stop it.

[SharpsBig50]

That’s a nice buck! What is the cartridge is it chambered in? Great to see an original in the field.

[Smoke Wagon]

That is a beautiful original Sharps and in great care taker hands with Mr. Stovall.

Thank you for sharing.

[Kirk Stovall]

That’s a nice buck! What is the cartridge is it chambered in? Great to see an original in the field.

It is 40-90 Sharps bottleneck, here it is compared to a 45-70. I gave up on paper patch and found grease groove and 5744 to be the ticket...

[Gussy]

Nice squirrels!! Oh yeah, good buck too

( I bet the buck will taste better than the squirrels)

[nineteen76]

Cool story, but I am seeing 2 different rifles in your pictures!?

[Kirk Stovall]

Cool story, but I am seeing 2 different rifles in your pictures!?

Yes, I have 3 original Sharps that were all shipped to Bozeman in the 1870’s. 2 of them were in the same shipment. They are all 40-90 bottleneck chambered…

[SharpsBig50]

I see you used a smokeless load, I have some 5744 where did you find the data to load with it? I have a 44-77.

[Kirk Stovall]

I see you used a smokeless load, I have some 5744 where did you find the data to load with it? I have a 44-77.

Mike Venturino…

[Kurt]

That is a nice buck! It looks like he spent some time in that wheat field getting fat before the wheat harvest
I'm going to have to get a .40-90 BN's. I don't think that I would shoot a squirrel with that caliber, wastes too much meat

Good work!!

Kurt

[powderburner]

That’s when you bark them kurt.

[Kurt]

WOOF-WOOF

[Bulseyetom]

Nice to see a buck fall with a 40 caliber bullet! I have been working for four years to get a paper patched bullet to shoot in either my Sharps or my Hepburn and I am now finally declaring myself the winner! Finding a smokeless load for the rifles with a 330 grain dual diameter bullet wasn't too hard but to get great accuracy I found I needed a hdpe wad to protect the base of the bullet. This worked ok at the range where I started the wad and then seated the bullet by hand with a set of calipers to maintain the desired OAL. I was leery that in the field that the wad would either fall deeper into the case or the bullet and wad could be pushed deeper. I bought some 0.120 and 0.090 thick hdpe sheets and tried to see if a thicker wad might not move readily. In the end that wasn't going to work so I started looking for a load that would fill the case better. To help matters, I ordered a single diameter bullet that was 360 grains so that it would seat deeper into the case and eat up some volume. That worked but the velocity was so high that the recoil was killing me. Now I use a powder that produces an 1850 fps load with the 360 grain bullet by using a filler over the powder and then a 0.060 wad to protect the bullet. The filler keeps the bullet from going deeper into the case. I realize that the use of fillers is quite controversial so I won't go into details but for me it is working and my quest for a good hunting load for elk out to 200 yards has been achieved. I hope I am as successful as Kirk was! Tom