Load recommendation for 1863 NM Shiloh Sharps

[patio]

Recently acquired a Farmingdale Shiloh NM 1863 Sharps. Ordered an Eras Gone Richmond Laboratories bullet mold to cast the projectiles. What load works best? Linen style or paper with the tail. Have some Navy Arms musket caps and Olde Eynsford 2f and 1 1/2f black powder to try. Have some 2f Goex also. Any information would be appreciated. My carbine is early. Its serial number is the month and year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Still mad at my Mother for not letting me stay up to watch this historic event.

Thank you!

[PoorJack]

Patio- have you slugged the bore on your Sharps? This part is critical to getting the best accuracy out of your Sharps. Eras makes a bullet that is a repro of the original but if it doesn't fit your bore, good luck on accuracy. As for cartridges, most of us here use either Charlie's tubes or roll our own replica of it. I don't know of any Sharps shooters in the N-SSA that shoot a Sharps as a "paper cutter". Several reasons for that, but a large part is for accuracy. Powder- experimentation will tell you what works best. Most have very good results with 2f or 3f in the 35-45g range.

[Maillemaker]

I shot the Eras Gone Richmond Laboratories Sharps bullet in my Pedersoli 1859 Sharps Carbine. I got reasonable accuracy with it, though I had a feeling it was not consistent. Mark himself has gotten fantastic accuracy out of it based on targets I've seen him turn in at skirmishes.

The bullet has only a slight step-down for the heel so you cannot use Hahn tubes with it. You must use paper (or drafting linen, if you can find any 100+ year old stock). I would not recommend making tail-cutter style cartridges as the paper sometimes folds between the barrel and breech block which can lead to gas cutting issues. Plus reliability in ignition issues. Plus spilled powder issues. Tissue-end tubes flush with the end of the chamber are the way to go.

A piece of 17/32 brass tubing makes an excellent mandrel for forming paper tubes for the bullet.

You'll need a custom 13.5mm punch to punch out cardboard wads to keep the reduced powder charges at the rear of the tube. I believe I had it made by this seller:

https://www.ebay.com/usr/zxlm651119

You can probably get away with a standard 13mm punch but I wanted the wads to be a snug fit so they didn't "teeter totter" while I was trying to glue them in place.

Another option is to use a fiber wad.

You can see that 40 and 45 grains 3F Goex did well during the load workup.

https://i.imgur.com/BPTfgezl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/qPYxUcbl.jpg

Larry Flees has designed a bullet that is a variant of the 3-band "Christmas Tree" bullet. It has the front driving band sized to fit in the bore of the Pedersoli Sharps (.510" in diameter). This makes the bullet a "bore rider" which, based on some period Christmas Tree bullets, I believe was the design intent behind these bullets. No other reproduction mold, not even the Pedersoli Christmas Tree mold, does this in my Pedersoli Sharps. I believe this bore-riding enables the bullet to be more consistently coaxially aligned with the bore and contributes to accuracy. The bullet has a grooved heel that will work with Hahn tubes or tied paper/linen tubes.

You used to have to have this mold custom made through Accurate Molds plus additional core pin work from Larry. Stand by for some interesting news on this bullet in the near future.

[patio]

Thank you all for the replies. Will try to roll my own linen style cartridges. How critical is the length of the tube? Don't want to cut the rear of the cartridge when the breach is closed. How much of a gap between the breach face and cartridge base is acceptable when the breach is closed?

Thank you!

[Maillemaker]

Thank you all for the replies. Will try to roll my own linen style cartridges. How critical is the length of the tube? Don't want to cut the rear of the cartridge when the breach is closed. How much of a gap between the breach face and cartridge base is acceptable when the breach is closed?

Thank you!

You want it as flush as possible. A little underflush on a clean gun is a good idea (perhaps 1/16th of an inch) because as the chamber and throat foul up subsequent shots may not chamber quite as deeply.

Here is a video that describes how I do it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XVLIxtHNW4

[Hal]

Good tutorial Steve!

[Rick R]

I shoot a Farmingdale .50 cal with a Brooks bullet in a paper cartridge with 45 gr Swiss 2 F. Copier paper with hair curler paper on the end. The bullet band diameters were specified based on slugging the bore.