Another Sharps Question...

[William H. Shuey]

I have a Sharps that has had the O-Ring and removable sleeve job done on the breech. My question is what is the conventional wisdom about when to install a new O-Ring?? After every so-many rounds or is there some indicator I should be aware of??

Bill Shuey

[Scott Kurki, 12475]

You should remove the o-ring when you clean the gun after your shooting session is over. Keep the o-ring out of the gun until your next shooting session. You want to prevent the o-ring from taking a set. You might want to put a tag on your gun to remind yourself to replace the o-ring before shooting again.

Since you never know when your o-ring is going to fail, I replaced mine with a fresh one before a match and I kept spares close by. So I am saying that I re-used o-rings for non-skirmish events like practice and used a fresh o-ring for each match.

Many folks don't replace the o-ring until the action starts locking up. With my gun, the lockup came pretty quick, i.e. I could not finish the relay, so I used fresh o-rings before each match.

[Gary B]

Since were on the topic of Sharps & O-rings ................
I had the O-ring and sleave job done (with chromed plate) on my Pedresoli '59 model and found no great change. after 5-6 rounds it locks up. Action is smooth as glass until fired. on inspection, it appears that fouling is getting between the Gas plate & the block causing it to bind in the receiver frame. I can help this by filling the cavity with grease, allowing 10-12 rounds before tightening (and spraying hot grease on anyone nearby).

Am I wrong in thinking the only fix would be to have a solid block made ?
I have heard of others doing this with success.

It is frustrating becuse the gun is very accurate.
Any input from the experts would be helpfull. I have shelved the gun for now.
Thanks,
Gary B.

[Francis J. Miller Jr, 02601]

Bill,

I don't have any advice for you, because I don't know the mechanical workings of the Sharps, sometimes it's greek to me, instead I have a question of my own concerning this gun & other Civil War Era carbines. I enjoy reading these posts, you can learn alot by sitting back and reading the replies from our organization's greatest resources about these guns, and that is the knowlegable membership of the N-SSA. My question is this, did the original carbines of breech-loading design, such as the Sharps, Smiths, Burnsides, Spencers etc. have these mechanical problems which are being discussed by the members in this forum that own & shoot their repro counterparts today? Like o-rings, spacers, chrome plating the block faces, the chambers etc. If so, the soldiers must of had one heck of a time with them in the field, or are the repro's being built much differently, especially the actions, than the original configurations of the 1850's & 60's. I myself would like to get into shooting carbines sometime, just need to learn alot more about the different models, pro & con. and see which ones tickles my fancy. Besides musket, I have been shooting a Henry for about a year now and love it. Now I would like to expand to a carbine & even a smoothie, down the road.
Thanks,

[Southron Sr.]

I only replace my O-Ring when my Pedersoli Sharps starts to leak gas at the breech.

I generally carry my spare O-Rings in the patch box of my Sharps, so pulling out the worn out O-Ring and replaceing it with a new one takes only a moment because the new ones ar so handy.

I generally get around 60-70 shot before my breech block starts to bind because of black powder fouling.

Chrome plating of the sleeve in Pedersoli Sharps seems to be redundant as the factory made sleeve is made out of Stainless steel.

DEAR MR. MILLER

Nope, neopreme O-Rings and plastic Smith cases weren't around during The Late Unpleasantness Between the States.

If you want to read an eye-opening account of ALL the problems that the calvarymen had with their carbines circa 1861-65, I would suggest that you purchase a copy of Dean Thomas' "Roundball to Rimfire. Volume II " that covers Civil War carbines and their ammo.

Just Google "Thomas Publications" and pull up their website. Volume II answere a lot of questions about Civil War Carbines and ammo that was issued for them. I highly recommend the book.

[Edwin Flint, 8427]

Not a specialist or anything so this is just my opinion of the likely cause of your problem.

Recently got my Shiloh back after a re-work of the gas check plate. No problems with it at all. I think Shiloh is using a different steel now to reduce the chance of gas etching, but No O-ring job, just the standard block as re-worked by Shiloh. The last skirmish, I shot about 80 rounds before cleaning the block, stopping of course between relays.

As I understand it, Shiloh makes their guns exactly like the originals, to the point that its parts will interchange with the originals. I am not sure what the problem is that requires an O-ring job for the Italian Repros. From what I have seen, the problem is not the design, but in the workmanship or the steel being used by the Italian mfgs. or both. I suspect the tolerences on the Italians are a little too loose and as such this allows fouling where it is not supposed to go, leading to lock ups.

[P.Altland]

Since were on the topic of Sharps & O-rings ................
I had the O-ring and sleave job done (with chromed plate) on my Pedresoli '59 model and found no great change. after 5-6 rounds it locks up. Action is smooth as glass until fired. on inspection, it appears that fouling is getting between the Gas plate & the block causing it to bind in the receiver frame. I can help this by filling the cavity with grease, allowing 10-12 rounds before tightening (and spraying hot grease on anyone nearby).

Am I wrong in thinking the only fix would be to have a solid block made ?
I have heard of others doing this with success.

It is frustrating becuse the gun is very accurate.
Any input from the experts would be helpfull. I have shelved the gun for now.
Thanks,
Gary B.

Try filling the cavity in your breech block with high temp. silicone. I learned this from a teamate. I have a Garrett with the split chamber sleeve and I shoot all weekend without tightening up and having to clean.

[Southron Sr.]

What you said about the loose tolerences on some of the other brands of Italian Sharps might be right, but the tolerences on my Pedersoli Sharps are so TIGHT it is amazing.

They are fully equal to the tolerences on a pre-war Luger, which is the epitone of precision fit....LATER EXCEPTION:

When TRW got a contract to build M-14's (in the late 1950's) engineers were sent from Springfield to help TRW get the rifles in production; as TRW had never before made firearms.

The TRW enginers and the Springfield engineers spoke an entirely different language: Springfield engineers were talking about holding their tolerences within a few "thousands" of an inch-which was stardard for the gun industry (and had not changed since before the Civil War.)

TRW engineers, (TRW produced precision parts for aero-space applications) were talking about holding their tolerences to a few "millionths" of an inch.

So if you are wondering-TRW M-14's were considered the 'cream of the crop' of all the M-14's produced by the different armories, now you know.

No wonder, TRW got a contract to make National Match M-14's! That was the first time National Match arms had been made anywhere except Springfield.

Supposedly made "obsolete" by the adoption of the M-16 during the early Viet Nam War-today M-14's are still on the firing line in Afghanistan and Iraq for specialized roles. Seems that the 7.62 M-14 does the job while the puny 5.56 M-16/M4 can't.

[Terry Davis 10639]

Not a specialist or anything so this is just my opinion of the likely cause of your problem.

Recently got my Shiloh back after a re-work of the gas check plate. No problems with it at all. I think Shiloh is using a different steel now to reduce the chance of gas etching, but No O-ring job, just the standard block as re-worked by Shiloh. The last skirmish, I shot about 80 rounds before cleaning the block, stopping of course between relays.

As I understand it, Shiloh makes their guns exactly like the originals, to the point that its parts will interchange with the originals. I am not sure what the problem is that requires an O-ring job for the Italian Repros. From what I have seen, the problem is not the design, but in the workmanship or the steel being used by the Italian mfgs. or both. I suspect the tolerences on the Italians are a little too loose and as such this allows fouling where it is not supposed to go, leading to lock ups.

I bought a used Shiloh a couple years ago. It looked pristine except that it had some gas erosion of the check plate. It was pitted pretty good. I showed it to a guy in our region who speclializes in smithing sharps and he said it was not bad, and I could either shoot it until I had a real problem or just get an o-ring mod done now. I chose to have him do it, and I have had no problems since. I can put at least 40-50 rounds through it without even pulling the block to wipe it down. I could go more, but that is the most I have put through it in one session. I have also not had to change the o-ring yet, and I have put about 60 rounds through it in practice, and another 45 through it in skirmishes.
That is quite a contrast to another guy on my team who has to pull the breech block on his Garret sharps after each relay.

[Edwin Flint, 8427]

I have no experience with the Pedersoli so cannot speak first hand. When given a choice, I will buy American built guns every time. Pedersoli supposedly is made better than the other Italian guns but Southron seems to think it still needs a O-ring job to work well skirmishing. That to me does not sound right when Shiloh works well, no mods out of the box.

Over the 16 years of skirmishing, I have seen the "recommended" Italian guns swap around. An example is revolvers. When I first joined, Uberti was the revolver of choice. Now it is Pietta. Regardless, every Italian Mfg. required considerable tuning to bring it up to a good skirmish gun.

The O-ring job appears to be a fix for a problem caused by gas erosion and loose tolerences. In the original Sharps, there was no such problem. They built the guns right to begin with and they worked and no O-ring "fix" needed. I looked into the O ring job and decided against it.

Shiloh inspected and re-built the breech for about $350.00 including shipping both ways. Inspection revealed that all of the gune met their specs. This is a Wolf's Head Shiloh, one made in New York. It has been in use for over 20 years before I had the work done. I essentially have a new carbine. I believe it was worth it because I suspect it will outlast me.

Mr. Miller, They are more expensive but I think the Shiloh is definitely worth the extra money. I have shot several types of Carbines and I like the Sharps most of all.

[Charlie Hahn]

Hi Bill,

As an indicator, here is my rule of thumb.

At the end of every match outing you should replace the oring. Keep in mind that a Sleeve and O-ring in the barrel, the o-ring is not a seal but spring.

You need to look at the gas plate at the end of each outing as well. If you start to see the little eyebrow start to form you should lightly lap the face to remove. Once the light errosion starts it will move very fast and as little as 50 rounds can really damage the surface.

Most o-ring jobs use about .001 tp .015 inch compression, so you have considerable life in the pressure plate. The mods I do have a stepped sleev, and can be changed ot remade at a low fee to keep up with the pressure plate maintenance.

The short side of the sleeve as well as the pressure plates are wear items and need to be refreshed as do nipples, and flash holes, etc.

I do free inspection at the Nationals, or any shoot that I attend if you would like a quick look see.

Charlie Hahn