Shiloh with C. Sharps barrel?

[gmkmd]

A friend of mine has a Sharps long-range express; the action is marked Shiloh Rifle Co, Big Timber, and the barrel is marked Old Reliable C. Sharps Arms.
What gives?

[VenisonRX]

Some time ago C Sharps and Shiloh were part of the same company and they split in the 80s or 90s don’t know the exact date. I’ve got a 63 carbine with the same thing and a wolf head stamp on the right side. I’ve got a 74 carbine that came after with just shiloh on the barrel and no mention of C Sharps or a wolf head but built prior to the current ownership. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the C Sharps marked barrels are actually made by green mountain prior to shiloh manufacturing their own.

Tom

[Kenny Wasserburger]

Badger barrels not Green mountain. They are of more recent manufacturing. Split happened in the 80’s.

KW.

[VenisonRX]

Not sure why I had green mountain stuck in my head. Thanks for the correction.

[gmkmd]

So if you have a gun with a Shiloh receiver and a C. Sharps barrel, how do you tell what it is? Is it a Shiloh Sharps, or is it a C. Sharps?

[bobw]

It's a Shiloh, says so stamped on the left side of the receiver. Made probabably prior to 1985 My LRE serial is 70xx from that time marked the same way. My Saddle gun is 79xx from late 1987 marked Shiloh on the receiver and Shiloh on the barrel as well as the (Old Reliable ) tm . Made after the split but before the court settlement on the OR tm. Check and measure your freebore before investing a lot of molds. bobw

[Kirk]

They are all Shilohs with Shiloh barrels on them. When the big split and law suit happened Schofstoll got the c. sharps name and Wolf kept the Shiloh name. All Schofstoll was at that time was a salesman. That's the rest of the story.

Kirk,

[kenny s]

had a 40 90 NY gun a long time ago. had a LOT of freebore.....watch that....
you'll have to seat the greasers way out to get to the grooves or use long PP bullets.
nothing wrong with them...just the way they are.
good guns all...Ken

[gmkmd]

So, as I try to learn more about these companies, I hear a lot of name-dropping such as "Schofstoll", "Wolfgang", "Bryan", etc. But I don't know who you guys are all talking about. Is there somewhere I can read about all this company history, for someone who isn't an "insider"?

[James]

My wife and I were insiders in the early days having worked for C. Sharps Arms and with Shiloh. C. Sharps and Shiloh Sharps have always been two separate companies. Originally Wolfgang Droege, owner of Drovel Tool Mfg. Co. began making Sharps replicas in Farmingdale, NY. Early guns are marked Shiloh Products then became the Shiloh Sharps. When Wolfgang met John Schoffstall at a Shot Show they began to develop a relationship where Schoffstall, who owned a gun shop in Washington state, was selling Shiloh rifles among other products. In 1979, I was one of two gunsmiths hired to work at Farmingdale by John Schoffstall under Wolfgang Droege to assist in any manner we could. Then us two were hired by Schoffstall to build custom ordered rifles based on Shiloh Sharps barreled actions and this was done under the name C. Sharps Arms but the guns were not marked C. Sharps in any manner. Around this time C. Sharps Arms, owned by Schoffstall, became the distributor west of the Mississippi while Shiloh Sharps owned by Droege was the east of the Mississippi distributor.
Early in 1981 the C. Sharps Arms Co. moved from Washington to Big Timber, MT and a few years later Shiloh Sharps moved to Big Timber and occupied a new building along with C. Sharps Arms still as separate companies. Also around this time is when Schoffstall got Wolfgang to start marking the barrels with C. Sharps, but the guns were always Shiloh Sharps made by Shiloh and C. Sharps Arms became the sole distributor and still the custom shop.
The" Old Reliable" marking was trade marked by Schoffstall and was allowed to be stamped on the barrels.
By 1984 the two companies were having disagreements. We left C. Sharps Arms in late 1984. Lawsuits started shortly after and at the end of it Droege built his own building and moved into it and years later he sold the business to the Bryan's.

[gmkmd]

Thank you very much for the info! That clears up a lot of my questions. I'm just very interested in the history of the company because I love their guns so much (I have over a dozen). It would be great to see someone write a book on the whole history.

[LHuck]

Does anyone know if one of the main reasons over the split was the building of the 1875 Sharps? Somewhere years ago I had heard that and was wondering if there is any truth to it.

[Clarence]

My understanding was that Schofstall began building the 1875 after the split, no longer having a supply of 1874 actions.

Clarence

[gmkmd]

Since you brought up the 1875 Sharps:
Why did C. Sharps ever bother making those? Let's face it; they're ugly. It's like someone took a Sharps and stripped it of all its style and personality. I know that's just my opinion, but every so often I see one at a gun show being offered for a fraction of its original price, and they're always still there when the show closes.

[James]

Schofstall was investigating makeing the 1875 befor the split.
To me it hasn’t the history or charm of the 74 or 77 models.