Sharps Carbine?

M

mec

New member
Anybody experienced with these? I've just done a T&E on Pedersoli from Dixie Gunworks. Made up paper cartridges from a kit from the same source.
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very pretty little arm and it shoots very well. These things are supposed to have a floating sleave in the chamber that you need an expansion nut-tool to removed. I had no such tool and wonder if the thing was working as advertised. It emitted quite a bit of smoke and heat from the top of the breach and through the bottom at the lever. Nothing painful but I was glad of my shooting glasses. The sleeve set-up is suppled to ride back against the breach and more or less seal it. This is supposed to allow extended firing by reducing fouling. We had to keep this one dosed with cleaning fluid to get more than five shots. and after ten or 15, it was getting ready for a take-down cleaning.
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I own a Pedersoli 1859 Infantry myself. They are really good guns.

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The floating bushing inside the rifle is called the Gas Check. You don't have to have a tool to pull it out. I can get mine to move using just my small finger. The Gas Check does not come all of the way out, so you must clean it while it is still inside the gun. I use a toothbrush to clean it.

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Mine is the same way. About 3 to 5 shots, and you clean it. I keep cleaning solvent in a sprayer bottle nearby and also some bore butter to grease the breach block area to keep the gun working.

Yes, you will get some gas leakage around the breach block. I wear glasses too, and I always get dirt on my glasses when firing my rifle. You just have to accept it. That is normal for these Sharps rifles.
 
exactly what I needed to hear. I'm pretty sure this one doesn't even have a gas check. No sight of anything but conitnuous chamber on into the barrel.
In the breach in the hollow where the nipple vent comes through are two apparently stainless steel washers. Extremely thin. One was damaged adn the other destroyed by 30-40 rounds.
 
WG, This is a S. Robinson Southern Carbine sharps knock-off. Is it possible that the Confederates just eliminated the gas check-maybe to streamline production????
 
Possibly. I would think that Pedersoli would just use different wood furniture and barrel lengths to make the various versions of the rifle, but use the same breach block. I knew yours was a Confederate by the brass band.

If this helps at all the Gas Check is stainless steel. There are tools available to pull them out if the thing ever does get stuck. By the way they cannot physically be completely removed from the rifle unless you do some heavy duty gunsmithing and take the barrel out of the breach block frame. You have to monkey around with the gas check still in the breach.

For my personal view I think the basic idea of the Gas Check is flawed anyways. The only reason I can think there is even one on the rifle at all is Cristian Sharps' imagination thought the explosion of gunpowder pushing the bullet forward would also push the gas check back against breech block face. I find that difficult to believe myself. I think physics would just have the explosion push the gas check outwards against the barrel it is mounted inside of, and not move forwards, or backwards at all. Not having one is possibly a good thing, since it makes it much easier to clean the fouling and prevent rust that way.

Another possible thing to tighten up the breech is to use an O-ring between the breechblock faceplate and the breechblock itself. Mine has a milled faceplate that can come off of the block. It came standard with a metal washer between the block and block face. An O-ring in there will push the faceplate tighter against the breech of the barrel, yet still be able to move it. It gets fouled to all hell and gone when shooting though, so it is obvious there is gas getting around inside that part of the breech block.

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The O-rings get worn out fairly quickly though, getting harder and harder and cracking instead of being flexible and rubbery as when they start out in life. It is apparently a trick used by weekend shooters that Pedersoli was going to copy, but never did. Or perhaps they just made the blocks of their rifles ready made for a quick and easy user mod, hence the washer?
 
That could be. There were two washers in the breach block. Both of them were pretty well whacked by 30 rounds One completely destroyed and broken. From what you say, I believe that there is no gas check. I can detect nothing but a standard, contiguous chamber.

Upon arrival, the breach block fit up tight and after all shooting and thourough cleaning, it would not go back in until I removed the destroyed washer.
 
Wierd Guy: Did your Sharps come with that modified (stainless) gas seal or did you have someone else do it? I've read somethings about it in the N-SSA.net or CivilWarGuns.com and am interested in having my Perdesoli converted.
 
My sharps came with the stainless steel Gas Check. What you see in the pictures is the stock rifle parts.

Like I said, I think the Gas Check was an attempt by Christian Sharps to design a tighter breech seal, but it probably doesn't work. Right now I think it is just a useless bit that is hard to clean. I will at least add that I do not get fouling black soot on the outside of the Gas Check and can still get it out with just my little finger after a day of shooting.

If you are still worried about gas leakage, Pedersoli does make brass powder cups that you can stick in your rifle. Brass expands and makes the gas seal on regular rifles, so it will work with a Sharps in the same way, barring the small hole for the ignition.

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Got word from Dixie Gunworks and Pedersoli about this. At the request of Turner Kirkland, on the Confederate Carbine at least Pedersoli eliminated the gas check entirely depending on the forward load of the plate. It is unclear whether or not the Confederates did the same thing.
 
Are you going to replace the broken metal washer? If what you said is true then I might want to get some spares myself if they are worn out after 30 shots.

FYI, I just want to be double sure that everyone reading this knows the O-ring mentioned above is not a standard part, but something I have heard of private owners trying out on their own. Use it at your own risk, though I would not be scared to try it myself. I have not tried it yet.
 
I've finished with the gun and returned it along with the crunch-buggered washers. I received a request to inform Pedersoli of the washer situation and did so.

Those brass ctgs look like a fine idea for people who shoot these regularly. the Smith carbine uses a similar cartridge with the back end fitted into a rebated breach. That reall is an effective seal. When I delt with this one, I used the paper cartridge kit to make real-looking bulleted cartridges. the instructions with the kit presuppose seating the bullet first and then using made up combustible cartridges with gunpowder only. The white glue I used seems to have defeated the sharps concept to some extent as some of the paper was insulated and didn't combust. Given the possibility of accidental ignition, I avoided rapid fire and ran a patch through the barrel after every shot.
 
I've finished with the gun and returned it along with the crunch-buggered washers.

Does that mean perhaps you are researching for another book, I hope?

Excellent!

Steve
 
This one should be third in a series running in Guns Magazine. The first is on the shelves right now and it's expected that they will appear at least a month apart and maybe more.
 
I've never used paper cartridges yet. I just drop in a bullet, overfill the chamber, use my thumb to pack it in a bit, then shut the breechblock. I blow off the excess gunpowder so I don't get anything in my face when I shoot.

Add cap and fire. I have now learned to fire two caps through the rifle unloade first. I tend to oil the living hell out of my expensive rifle to prevent rust, so there is always some inside the block and that causes initial misfires until I learned.
 
I degreased the one I had and busted some caps too. I've heard that that channel that makes a couple of right hand turns or something is somewhat prone to misfires. No problem in the 30 or 40 shots I fired.
 
I wouldn't think it would be prone to missfire if it is cleaned correctly.

By that I mean you have to take apart the breech block. Out comes the cone, and also a screw from the left side. That is how the zig zagging ignition channel is cut in the first place. You mill out the breech block on a C&C machine, then drill out the center of the breech face nozzle, then drill out a hole on the right top at an angle for the percussion cap cone, tap and die that hole, and then you join the two together by drilling a hole horizontally from the left side, tap and die that hole, and screw in a short screw to plug it.

Take that plug screw out, and clean the ignition chamber with a small bore brush. I do. Getting it out the first time was a problem though, and I don't overtorque it putting it back in. I know I will need to get it out again the next time I go out for a shooting session.
 
Ok, I now have the need for Pedersoli's gas check tool. I went out shooting with my brother and a friend. Well, my brother had never fired the Sharps before. He loved the thing to death.

However, he was a bit overzealous and kept on shooting and shooting it, probably putting a dozen or more bullets through the rifle without cleaning it. I usually pull out the breech block after 3 to 5 shots and do a quicky solvent and rag clean of the rifle, and put a soaked wadded up rag down the barrel. He just sprayed the block with solvent and that was it.

When I got to cleaning the rifle at home latter that night I couldn't wiggle the gas check out, or even turn it. I cleaned up as best I could, and went online to order a tool off the internet. Dixie Gunworks must have it hidden pretty well, because I couldn't find it on their site. However, a google search turned it up on a website called the www.possibleshop.com and they have both types of gas check tools. One with a handle, and another that is just a brass camlock cylinder that you put inside the chamber and use an allen wrench to make the cam get wider and wedge itself inside.

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Three days latter I had the tool and with some effort I got the gas check out. I ended up needing a cleaning rod all the way down the barrel and tapped on the end with a light hammer. The gas check was covered in black sooty oil.

The tool without the handle is supposedly used differently. I understand that some Sharps have a tight gas check on purpose. The idea is you use that you put that camlock inside the chamber, then shut the breechblock with it still inside. Then take a cleaning rod and hammer (just like I did to get it out) and tap on it to move the gas check to get a nice tight fitting gas seal. Open up the breech, remove the brass camlock and your rifle is set to go.

I also bought a brass cartridge case, but it doesn't fit with the Hornady bullets I am using.
 
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