So a while ago I had Larry Flees do his magical work on my Pedersoli Sharps. He makes a custom Ampco bronze gas check plate and installs a non-floating chamber sleeve and makes the thing absolutely gas tight. Went from being able to get off 10 shots before the action seized up to being able to shoot nearly 100 rounds in a row without cleaning. It really is amazing. Not only does the gun simply work now, but cleanup is a breeze. I've heard people complain about how hard it is to clean the Sharps, but after Larry's work, all of the gas and fouling is kept inside the chamber. Basically you remove the breech block for a dunk-and-scrub and blast with compressed air, and swab the bore and chamber, give a couple of wipes inside the breech block cavity, and you're done. Far faster than cleaning any of my other BP guns.
Well the Pedersoli block as it comes stock has a lot of nooks and crannies in the fire channel for the percussion cap. That means that when you shoot it for the first dozen times or so you get a lot of misfires until the fire channel fouls up and fills in the nooks and crannies. Larry fixes this by replacing the stock fire cone and the cleanout screw so that they are precision fits - eliminating the nooks and crannies that wasted the cap flame. This results in much more reliable ignition.
I got my breech block back from Larry (super fast turnaround, as usual - I think I got it back in a week) and took the Sharps out to the range. Sure enough - much more reliable ignition! I had 2 misfires out of 35 shots, and they were in the first few shots.
I highly recommend Larry Flees' for Sharps work.
Steve
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