New to me Shiloh Sharps

[bobw]

Open the breech by dropping the lever. Put a small drop of oil on the ends and sides of the breech block. A small drop of oil on each side of the lever at the pin, that's all that's needed for lubricating the action. Whatever lube the lock needs Shiloh has allready put in there. 2nd time I've explained that to you.

[doug_bailey]

Open the breech by dropping the lever. Put a small drop of oil on the ends and sides of the breech block. A small drop of oil on each side of the lever at the pin, that's all that's needed for lubricating the action. Whatever lube the lock needs Shiloh has allready put in there. 2nd time I've explained that to you.

...and I appreciate the comment and the help. The reason I'm still thinking about opening up the lock, despite your advice and the warnings from others on the forum that it's a risk WRT chipping the wood, is the condition of the rifle when I received it. It looks like it has been stored for many years in the case, and the case has been in the sun - perhaps close to a window. There was zero - really, none - obvious oil or lube on any exposed part of the gun, and there was a film of surface rust on the unprotected, machined, part of the rear sight (with the MOA markings) and a couple of patches on the barrel, that went away when I rubbed them with my finger. I think that the rifle is quite old and was stored without love or maintenance - perhaps since it was bought. It came from a consignment to a store in coastal Texas, which can be quite humid. I'm intending to pull the breach block and take a look at the transfer bar and firing pin, and see if I can get the lock out without damage and inspect the trigger mechanism. Not disrespecting your input, just nervous about the parts that I can't see given the history of the rifle.

[bobw]

Fair enough, Lumpy Grits told you to call Shiloh and they will tell you when it was built and ask them if it needs a teardown and inspection for an unfired rifle..bobw

[gunlaker]

Doug I'm sure it'll work just fine without taking it apart, but it's your rifle so you have the right to do what you want of course. But I will say they didn't put "Old Reliable" on the barrels of the originals for no reason .

I'm sure get a lot of enjoyment out of your new rifle. Shiloh's are the best rifles made and second to none for black powder accuracy.

Chris.

[doug_bailey]

I'm heading to the range to shoot this Saturday. I tried my usual shooting bags out on my patio table to see how the Sharps feels - and it's pretty uncomfortable. The stock steps down lower than on a hunting rifle and so my front bag is too low. Obviously one answer is to raise the bag up or get a bigger bag - and that's an option. The other option is to make some bench sized adjustable cross sticks, which I did.

Using the cross sticks, I can set it up and get comfortable resting on the forearm or the barrel. The usual advice for scoped hunting rifles is to rest on the forearm and hand on top of the scope or wrapped back to the rear bag, but I notice in the YouTubes that the long distance Sharps shooters seem to prefer resting on the barrel.

What's the wisdom on a good bench shooting setup for the Sharps?

[craneman]

First I would find the null spot/spots on the barrel this I where to rest the barrel on the sticks. If you haven't done this before hold the rifle by the wrist, barrel down, tap the barrel lightly with a raw hide mallet, small brass hammer or a hammer handle. The barrel will vibrate until you hit a dead spot where it's just a dull thud, that's your resting spot for the barrel. On the bench I like a small bag under the toe and my left hand will be grasping it. This will approximate match shooting form.
Todd

[patchbox]

If you do find it absolutely necessary to remove the lock plate make sure to loosen the two screws on the upper tang - these screws go through the stock wrist and secure the lower tang. They compress the wood a little at the wrist area which compresses the wood at the inletting area of the lock plate. By loosening these two screws first you greatly diminish the likelihood of chipping the lock plate inletting when removing the lock plate.

[patchbox]

Other trick I have used successfully to remove the lock plate:
After loosening the two screws on the upper tang, loosen the two screws that secure the lock plate - about 1-1/2 - 2 turns. One of the screws goes through the receiver and one goes through the wrist of the stock. Try a thumb press first on the screw at the wrist and then on the other screw and then see if the lock plate is starting to stand proud of the wood - if it’s a Shiloh you will definitely know because the wood to metal fit is excellent and you will see movement - if thumb push is not enough take a small diameter delrin rod (small enough that diameter is equal to screw head diameter) and very, very gently tap the screw heads with that delrin rod and and small plastic tipped hammer. Once you see movement of the lock plate out of the inletting you can loosen the screws all the way and use a thumb push on the screw heads to push the lock plate out farther. At this point you can remove the lock plate screws and gently work the lock plate from the inletting. When reinstalling the lock plate leave the two tang screws loosened and tighten the lock plate screws first, the tighten the tang screws. I recommend using a good set of gun smithing screwdrivers from Brownells or other sources to reduce the chances of boogering up the slot in the screws. I have successfully removed lock plates on several of my Shiloh rifles using this method and no chipping of the inletting occurred. I will also note that the rifles I did this on were bought used and need some stock TLC and re-polishing/re-bluing of the screw heads out of negligence from the previous owner. The rifles I obtained that were in relatively good condition I left the lock plate alone.

[doug_bailey]

Range report:

First shots through the Shiloh Sharps. I'm sure that they are not much to write home about, but once my brain really understood that there is no take up and pretty much no pressure needed on the trigger, things went from 4" to a little under 2" groups at 100 yards. I need to work on my shooting position because I was not at all comfortable and the range bench is too short to rest the cross sticks on the barrel.

Sharps First Outing Very Small.jpg

[doug_bailey]

Here's my setup with homemade cross sticks and ammo box. Not sure that I like the sticks - hickory flooring left over from remodel with tung oil finish. I 3D printed the "cup" on the top to protect the rifle finish in case I needed to rest on the forearm, which is what happened - but the ammo box came out really nice. Oak stained with steel wool/vinegar mix to make the grey color, and sprayed with laquer from a rattle can.

S-Sharps Setup Small.jpg

[doug_bailey]

It was my first time out with the rifle and so I'm looking for some feedback on what I should be seeing at 100 yards. The last two sets of three shots are about 1.5" to 2" groups. How much of that was me, and how much was likely the rifle? An experienced shooting buddy says "all three shots should be through the same, enlarged, hole". But I don't know if he is giving me a hard time for fun, or honest feedback. What's the word?

[powderburner]

Well you see for yourself the groups are shrinking.
As we all say the rifle will shoot best with black and really good cast bullets.
What you have is not bad for your first goround and it will get better when you get more comfortable with your hold. Bought ammo is hard to get one hole groups with. But the rifle is plenty capable of one hole groups.

[doug_bailey]

That's encouraging! I'm looking forward to my next trip to the range. Likely I'll shoot off the rest of this Choice Ammo and then get started learning how to reload and see how that goes. I'll have about 100 cases by then, so enough to make it a solid afternoon of work to fill them back up.

The lack of comfort shooting off the bench was a real problem - I don't really understand why, but it was quite hard to manage the vertical aiming point alignment. I feel like I want to have a more vertical body posture.

The other thing that was not great was the rear peep. The hole seems to be quite large, so placing the front sight in the middle was quite the exercise in approximation. The diameter of the ring of the front sight is probably about 1/2 the diameter of the rear sight hole from my eye's point of view. Is that usual and something I should get used to, or should I invest in one of the fancy eye cups with the selectable aperture? Is there some rule of thumb such as making the peep hole the same viewing size as the front sight ring?

[powderburner]

You want the target to be one third the diameter of the aperature. The eye can center the target when its like that.
The stock design is different than modern rifles. And does take some getting used to. The more practice the better you get.
When you start to load, start whereever and shoot 500 rounds without changing anything then start playing with loads and such this gets you to where you know whats going on then you can decide what you want to do and which way you want to go with it.

[Randy Bohannon]

A Hadley Cup aperture will greatly help with target size. I use the smaller Hadley for close shooting as the Magnum covers up windage settings at close range.