New to me Shiloh Sharps

[doug_bailey]

I checked the sight on the Sharps - I'm a bit out of practice reading verniers, but it looks like the main ladder is marked in 5' divisions with a major division at 25, 50, 75 and so-on. The vernier piece has 5 marks on it. As far as I can tell, it's reading 3' up from the 20' mark and appears to be dead on for 100 yards with the ammo I made.

There's a 200 yard range about 45 mins drive away. I have never been there, but I could change my plan and try it this Sunday. I don't have a fancy scope to see where the shots are going and if I'm not on the paper so I'll be clueless about how to correct. Is there a rule of thumb? I tried a couple of ballistics calculators online - guessing most of the input values - and I get 13' increase from a 100 yard zero. Does that sound like a good place to start?

67 grains of 1.5 Swiss with two bullet options - 520 RN and 545 Creedmore, 20 of each.

[DeadEye]

Your 100 yard setting is right in the ballpark, for me it's 25 MOA. As a rule of thumb 20 MOA per 100 yards gets you on paper. For me it's a little less so your calculation of 13' might not be that far off. Mostly I work in meters due to Silhouette being laid out that way. My Chicken setting at 200 meters is close to 40' minutes depending on the day.

Keep on having fun

BTW, heed the advice you have been given on the dangers of smokeless loads.

Paul

[marlinman93]

Here's an excellent hot to video Wind Whitehill did to explain sight settings and adjustment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5PQfWh ... hLongshots

[doug_bailey]

I went to the range today to try out the third batch of ammo with the slightly heavier bullet. No major surprises and the rifle was still zeroed well at 100 yards, in spite of the bullet change. The 200 yard range was occupied with some kind of private event with guys with sub machine guns velcroed to their body armor. They did not look like they wanted to share, so I still have not been able to reach out beyond 100. However, I can propose a new law of physics based on my performance - "In any set of 5 shots, there will always be one flier that ruins the group". I gathered substantial experimental evidence for this over several hours.

I spent some time working on consistently holding and sighting. My usual approach is to hold it as lightly as possible and have my cheek touching the stock lightly. I played around with a firmer grip and a more "forward" and positive cheek weld to the stock and shot a good group (neglecting, of course, the one, inevitable, flier). What's the usual teaching on how to think about holding and sighting these rifles?

And one more thing - the recoil is so large that I can't imagine that worrying about "follow through" or whatever it's called being a factor. What's the word on this?

[gunlaker]

Doug you are on the right path. Once you have a reasonable load, how you hold the rifle is a huge part of shooting these well. I think of these things like .22LR but with much more recoil. You have a slow bullet with nearly 3x the barrel time of a modern rifle so hold and follow through are more important, plus you have the pretty decent recoil to mess with your follow through

For quite a while I would have two flyers on average in a ten shot group. When I get out of practice that happens again.

Chris.

[doug_bailey]

I finally managed to find some smokeless powder that one of the online resources indicate would be good for the 45-70. Using Hodgdon and available materials, my recipe for the 1886 Winchester would be:

44 grains of Accurate 2015. 0.060 veggie wad. CCR primer. 405 grain flat nose with HiTek powdercoat and some homemade lube (beeswax and Crisco).

According to Hodgdon, that should generate 1666 fps and 24000 PSI. This is on the high side for a plinking load for me and my kid to have some fun killing cans on the 50 yard range, but "44 grains" is the starting load for a lever gun on the website and it allows up to 49.2.

I'd like to target about 1250 fps, so by proportions, that would imply a 33 grains if the situation with grains vs fps is linear. If it's a square law (of the 1/2 mV^2 variety) then that would imply 38 grains to hit my target speed.

If I take the more conservative of the two ideas and undercharge the round with 38 grains instead of 44, will I have any issues?

[DeadEye]

Doug,

Do Not Use A Wad with Smokeless if it does not fill the case completely. It could/would DETONATE. At very least it is likely to RING the chamber Several people have advised you of this, please pay attention.

Paul

[doug_bailey]

"Denonate" is obviously not good - I'm glad I posted. There's a lot to learn here, and more to keep track of....

44 grains of Accurate 2015 with the 405 and wad almost fills the case. Less powder obviously would not with some margin, so that's a problem if leaving a space can cause detonation. Frankly, now I have a working system using black powder, I'm somewhat tempted not to mess with smokeless at all. I just don't want to have to clean the action on the WInchester very often, which I'm assuming would be needed somewhat frequently when shooting with black powder. It's fiddly to get it all back together again.

[marlinman93]

Wads are for black powder, and not for smokeless powders!

[Woody]

I only clean the actions on my BP rifles about once a year. The fouling is hydroscopic, but if it is dampened with oil if does not absorb H2O to cause any issues. I use Rem Oil to lube after cleaning and it seems to work just fine. To be specific and clear, I do clean the bore at the range after a shooting session.

Woody

[bpcrshooter62]

yes NEVER use a wad with smokeless powder it is not needed EVER !!

[doug_bailey]

Thanks all for the quick feedback - there's a pretty good chance that by 9pm this evening I'd have had 50 "bad" rounds made up; I appreciate the timely intervention.

[doug_bailey]

Hi

I made some ammo that engages the rifling by 0.03" and needs a tool to get it loaded. And I made a loader - 3D printed the difficult bit and turned up a handle on the lathe. The Fusion360 design file is downloadable here:

https://a360.co/48QEx3f

Here's what it looks like:

Sharps_Rifle_Long_Shell_Loader_2024-Jan-14_06-07-55PM-000_CustomizedView30504872196.png

IMG_1649.jpg

IMG_1650.jpg

[RMulhern]

The damn things will work you to death!

[bpcrshooter62]

Doug if you stay about 10 th off the rifling you will not have that problem and it will shoot just fine i have been doing it for years lol have fun and keep shooting