Shiloh Rifle Forums

My .54-caliber Shiloh Sharps 1863 rifle is in my safe now. Accompanying it were two lengths of Charlie Hahn's cartridge tubes and a bunch of Minié balls. My search for information pertaining to Hahn's tubes found references to bullets with a shank, shank fitting within a Hahn tube, I think.

The thought that occurred to me as I obtained information about shanked bullets is that this sounds much like a gas check bullet being used without the gas check. My experience with such bullets in my 45 Colts is that velocity need be kept moderate to maintain reasonable accuracy.
***
Is a shanked bullet-and-mold as accurate in actual use as a standard solid base bullet that has been breech seated? I refer to cartridges and/or breech-seated loads having powder charges of 85-100 grains FFg.

Is a Hahn-tubed cartridge that incorporates a shanked bullet a more durable assembly than a cartridge that does not used a shanked bullet - that is, is either cartridge likely to fall apart after several days of being carried in a cartridge pouch-box?

If I should have asked a question, but did not, please reply as though I asked.

it is called a ringtail bullet and is common to sharps. I shoot a raphine ringtail in Charlies tubes, both in rifle and carbine. There is no loss of accuracy as the bands seal the bullet in the rifling, the ringtail only serves as an attachment point. Brooks and others also make custon molds for the tubes. As to accuracy both my sharps (carbine and rifle) shoot sub 1" at 100 with swiss powder, and the 3 band rifle has been known to shoot about 2 1/2" at 200yds, better than most my 03s. In testing for the 200yd matches I shoot, I found the greatest accuracy was accomplished with Charlies tubes. Loose powder and a paper cart were lacking, plus the tubes are fast and easy to load.. been using them almost since charlie started selling them. I would say my carbine was shot about 1000 times this summer, judging by the tubes i bought, between practice and competitions. As to the issue of durability I use a bit of carpenters glue to bond the bullet to the tube and do not have any problems with cartridges falling apart.

Naphtali

Ever wonder how .22 'heeled' bullets shoot so well? Every once in a while you hear talk about how such bullets in the .41 Colt give such poor accuracy. You couldn't prove it by the tens of millions of .22 LR rds fired in a year or by the accuracy a pal is getting with his .41 Colt.
I think it's one of the myths of the "common knowledge" and "everyone knows ..." variety.

For those of you that are not familiar with the Hahn tubes, they are made out of thin cardboard and DO NOT combust when the cartridge is fired. What happens is that the remnants of the cardboard tube are sucked down the barrel and expelled out of the muzzle.

How do I know this? Because a friend of mine has a replica Sharps Carbine. He shoots on our N-SSA team and several times I have been a few shooters down from him during the rapid fire Carbine Team Matches at a Skirmish. If the wind is right, I will get "Snowed On" by "Cardboard Confetti" from his Sharps. Because he is an excellent shot and is busting targets for our team.....I don't mind the Cardboard Confetti!