Welp I'm now the proud owner of a Pedersoli 1859 Sharps Carbine!

[Maillemaker]

So I let my beautiful but unused Pedersoli P1853 go in trade for a Pedersoli 1859 Sharps Carbine.

Finally I have one of those new-fangled breech loaders that all the cool kids have.

I don't know anything about them.

It came with a Pedersoli mold. It's about a 522 grain ring-tail.

I see that they make tubes of various kinds (paper, brass) to use with them - how do you fish them out of the chamber after firing?

I like the idea of combustible cartridges like the originals, using flat bottoms instead of shearing tails. Is this allowed in the N-SSA?

This Pedersoli has a breech bushing that floats very nicely.

There is like a shiny metal plate that does the shearing and sealing of the breech - it is backed up by a block and there is an o-ring in between the two. Is this the "o-ring mod" that Charlie Hahn does, or is that something else?

Is the Hahn mod considered mandatory for these things?

Which end do I point at the target? It's so confusing having holes at both ends of the barrel! (just kidding)

Thanks,
Steve

[John Holland]

Steve, you know good shooting is all about consistency, so you will want to shoot a cartridge where you do not shear off any part of it. Charlie's tubes will fit the bill. The original Sharps flat bottomed linen cartridge was the improvement over the older model which required it to be sheared off.

[Jud96]

Congratulations on your new Sharps! You can use either a flat bottom cartridge or a twist tie that needs sheared. My Dad has been shooting his hand rolled tubes with a twist tie for over 30 years and he's been the number one shooter on our team for everyone of those years except a couple where I beat him . You only lose a few tenths of a grain or maybe a half, but with black powder those few kernels will go unnoticed with the type of shooting we do.

[Maillemaker]

Yeah, from what I've read, pre-war they used shearing-type cartridges, but during the war they went to flat-bottomed, burn-through cartridges.

My question is, with Charlie's tubes, you still have to fish out the tube after every shot, right? How do you do that?

I think I'd rather use a fully-combustible flat-bottomed paper cartridge. I know combustible cartridges are not allowed with muzzle loaders, but I did not see anything prohibiting them with breech loaders.

Steve

[P.Altland]

Hahn tubes eject from the barrel like confetti, at least for me.
BTW, probably just a keystroke error on your part but, combustible cartridges are not approved for use in muzzleloaders. They are , however approved for breechloading.

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[Maillemaker]

Ah, yes! "now" was supposed to be "not"! I have fixed it.

Hahn tubes eject from the barrel like confetti, at least for me.

Ah, so they are consumables! I did not know that - I thought they were cardboard tubes or something that you somehow extracted and re-used.

They are , however approved for breechloading.

OK, cool!

Steve

[Michael Bodner]

Charlie's tubes are not consumable/combustible. But they generally will fire-out of the barrel.

-Mike

[P.Altland]

While not combustible, they are consumable as they cannot be used again. The original brown tubes would split and eject out the barrel. Remind ya of a whirlybird seed pod from a maple tree. The new white tubes are thinner material and tend, as I said, to come out more like confetti. In the off chance, and it sometimes happens, that a piece is left in the breech, just push it forward with the next round. No big deal.


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[Smokepole50]

During Nationals I was shooting Bootsie's Sharps in the carbine match. It was damp weather as everyone knows so that may have affected how well the tubes broke up in the chamber. My experience in that match was approx. 1 out of 4 loads left some amount of tube still in the chamber. At least twice during the match the remaining tube looked to me at the time thick enough that I fished it out with a nipple pick. Other times I just pushed the remaining paper forward with the new cartridge. The time lost was probably one or two shots worth in total.

Charlies tubes are a great addition to the sport, however IMHO if you want a completely empty chamber every time you pull the trigger you need to roll your own tubes. I have been using curler paper with folded over end in my original sharps. I roll the tubes to be full bullet diameter and attached to the bullet base with nail polish. The end is folded over like a shotgun shell leaving a 1/8 flash channel which is sealed with a single layer of curler paper. A single paper, approx 1.5 turns on my .530 dowel gave me complete combustion. Two layers of paper, while sturdier did not always burn completely. The tubes were also coated on the outside with varnish in an attempt to make them stiffer. I used a thin card wad over the powder and steel cut oats as a filler to make up the remaining cartridge. I was also loading 40 and 45 grains of 3F in these loads. As you can probably guess, this is not a fast process...........charlies tubes are much much easier and very cost effective. I wonder how a bit of nitrate solution brushed on Charlie's tubes would effect there burning/ejection.

I think some of the problem with tube combustion or fragmentation is the reduced powder loads everyone wants to shoot. I would try some of Charlies tubes and see how much powder you need to use to get reliable burning/ejection of the tube. Charlies tubes are a very great time saver and if my bore was standard size so that I could use a normal Christmas Tree bullet I would be giving Charlies tubes a whirl. My original bore is .526 groove diameter.

[Ron/The Old Reb]

When I was shooting my Sharps I mad them out of Easy Wide Extra Wide Cigarette papers. When I loaded them I pushed the tail into the chamber with my thumb. They went off every time.
No shearing.