Thread: My oldest cartridge rifle 1859 ( picture heavy )

very tidy work as always..good on you for giving the old gals a new lease on life.

Originally Posted by akaroa1

No the donor barrel is stubbed into the sharps bored out shank
It goes fully to the breech face and contains the chamber and full continuous rifling

It's really just a barrel inside a barrel stub

This was to retain as much of the original Sharps as possible because it's barrel base and breech face has a lot of character

That's a clever way to join them. Very simple now that you have explained it. I was scratching my head before this post

Some final details done today

Made a barrel band entirely from scratch




Perfect fit and nicely covers the barrel stub join

As Ian Dury said "there ain't been some clever bastards"😊

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

As Ian Dury said "there ain't been some clever bastards"��

Well I was just thinking of a way to get the two know inside radius's done on the milling machine with the boring head and then file in the irregular sections



Then quite a lot of measure and fit. Repeat many times



Knocking the outside into shape was easier with bench grinders and linishers



Next time it won't take half a day

Still what else would you have been doing?

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Still what else would you have been doing?

I could have been on line getting a police permit to get a $40us one plus freight
Then I could have brought one and waited months for it to have arrived

And then found that it wasn't actually the right size for my carbine

No I'm pleased with my day spent learning how to do something I will use again

And a certain forum member didn't think it could be done
So no better reason than that required

Another certain forum member will be here for the day and will be firing it and a few other BP rifles today

Nice work, though takes time as you say.

Originally Posted by akaroa1

And a certain forum member didn't think it could be done
So no better reason than that required

What more reason do you need

That's a nice project and well done.
My mate has one of those already done in 50/70 and loves it - he's got the 'unaltered' paper cartridge one too.

I got a sporting Snider (Reilly) I'm shooting round ball out of and that's my 'go to' gun at the moment because it only weighs 6.5lb and it'll shoot 3 to 4" at 75 yards - which is all I'll ever shoot where I am.
Looked up Relly's serial numbers some years back and think it's from 1869 - so a bit later than yours.

I im also into early black powder cartridge rifles… and i have been talking to @akaroa1 on the phone for a few years now but have never actually met the man until Friday
I had a cancelled flight last year when we dropped back into lockdown for a couple of weeks
So I thought id use the credit to head down for a long weekend in akaroa
I spent the day yesterday at the akaroa 1 compound
And i had the great honour of shooting this rifle
Along with several other rifles that the legend has fixed up

I can say that this rifle and all the others do what they say on the box
What I like about akaroa’s work is that he has done as much as humanly possible to retain as much of the originality as possible only doing what is absolutely necessary to get the rifle safe fictional and accurate enough for what they are