Sharps .50s and handloading options

[Guy]

First I'd like to say howdy, as this is my first post on Graybeard.

My dream rifle is some species of .50 caliber Sharps. I confess an odd fascination with the .50-140 round, even though it wasn't one of the original Sharps rounds. My question is, would it be possible to load the .50-140 to duplicate the .50-90? That way I'd be able to experience a reasonable facsimile of an original Sharps .50 and have something for general shooting while still being able to experiment with the larger cartridge. I understand recoil from a full charge .50-140 is hefty and if BP is the propellant fouling is quite nasty from the prodigious charges, but I'd still love to play around with that cartridge.
Thanks.

[Redhawk1]

I am assuming you are going to load black powder? If this is the case you should get some black powder cartridge loading books. They have a lot of information in them. I am sure you can load them down to 90 gr. of black powder, but you will have to use wads to take up the room.

If you reload smokeless cartridges now, it is a different animal with the black powder cartridges. I would suggest Shooting Buffalo Rifles of the Old West by Mike Venturino.

Also http://www.buffaloarms.com/  is a great place to get all the supplies you will need for reloading black powder cartridges.

Hope this helped.  

[Guy]

Thanks.

[Redhawk1]

Guy, keep us informed how you make out.  

[Guy]

Well, I expect it'll be a looooooooooooooong time before I can afford the Sharps I want. I'm just doing what research I can before I make the final decision and plunk down my severly pinched pennies!

[Redhawk1]

I know what you mean, they are some expensive guns. I have a Shiloh Sharps Montana Rough Rider in 45-70 and I only shoot black powder loaded cartridges from it. What a blast.  

[Guy]

*turns green with envy and lets fly a Yosimite Sam-like growl of frustration*

Well, I'm hoping perhaps year after next or the following. Right now I'm generally concentrating on my Medeival arms collection. After that I think two or three practical guns might be in order, a pump 12 guage and an M-1 Garand. Then I can start seriously thinking about the Sharps.

[Somerled]

The Sharps "Big Fifty" was what is commonly called the .50-90 Sharps now. The case is 2 1/2 inches long. Like you I once had a fascination with the .50-140. I am a history buff. But I couldn't find one account where anyone actually used a .50-140. It probably seemed like a viable experiment at first but no one got it to pan out. Then smokeless powder came along.

I go through black powder fast enough with my Shiloh Sharps .45-70. And I had too much of a problem trying to keep smokeless powder down around the primer to uniformly ignite in that long of a case. So I expect those are some of the same reasons 19th century riflemen didn't adopt the much longer .50-140.

The shooters of that day gave the .50-70 Govt. and  the .50-90 a little notice but soon embraced the .45. The Sharps Creedmore rifles were first chambered for .44 bottleneck cartridges. The company then tried the .45 2 6/10 and later settled on .45 2 4/10. The .50 of any stripe wasn't accurate enough to compete in that 800, 1,000 and 1,200-yard sport.

The buffalo hunters used the Big 50 on the southern plains. But as the hunt shifted northward after the southern herd was depleted, the hunters turned to the .45 2/10 (a.k.a.: .45-70 or .45-75 Sharps) through .45 2 7/8 and perhaps the .40-90 Sharps Bottleneck.

I sure do have fun looking over those replica Sharps, Ballards, Remington Rolling Block, etc., catalogs.

Good luck.

[cooper]

If you want to shoot a 50/140, and keep recoil down, here is how I would do it:

First, make sure the rifle weighs at least 14 pounds.  Most of these Sharps rifles will weigh around 11-12 pounds, depending on barrel weight and length, but you can special order ($$$$$$$) extra heavy barrels.  Alternatively, you can drill some holes in the buttstock and fill them with birdshot, and get an extra couple of pounds that way.

Second, use Fg powder.  If you can find some Elephant brand (which is out of business now, but there is still some around), use it, because it is the slowest of the black powders.

Third, you can use a filler.  People have used cornmeal or cream-of-wheat (uncooked, of course!), but I would suggest granulated polyethylene.  Winchester Super Grex, if you can find any (out of production) or some of the speciality shotgun places have this type of filler (it's used to buffer shot charges).  Just load with a reduced charge of black powder, then fill up the rest of the case with filler, and then seat the bullet.

I do this routinely in my 45/100 to make a 45/70 out of it.  70 grains of Fg, and then around 10-15 grains Grex to take up the rest of the space in the case.

Fourth - make sure you use a light bullet.  The 450 gr flat noses would be perfect.  Stay away from the 600 gr bullets!

One final suggestion  -  to start with, what about getting a 50/90?  Shoot it for a while, and if you still decide you want a 50/140, it is relatively simple to have the chamber deepened.   I think (not sure) you could even use your 50/90 dies to load the 50/140.

[Dana C]

I have a 50-90 and have shot a 50-3.25 which I think is what you are talking about, (the case is 3.25").  If you look at BP ballistics, you find that more is not necessarily better.  Yes, the big case makes more smoke but is not as efficient as the shorter case.  In other words it just burns more powder but does not increase velocity or range in the same proportion.  
In terms of history, I don't think Sharps ever factory chambered a rifle in 50-140 or 3.25".  By the time the cartridge was introduced, the buffalo were pretty much gone.  I don't know of a single recorded buff hunter or hunt that used the cartridge.
Are they fun? Oh yeah.  If you can handle the weight, it is a great large game gun as well.  It will floor any bear in North America.  
I don't understand the recoil concern.  Big guns produce big recoil.  If you don't want big recoil, buy a smaller rifle / cartidge combo.