LEARNING to LOAD

.45- 1 10 Sharps the Old Way

- Harvey Pennington

Back in early 1982, I was more than a little excited when my new Shiloh Sharps Model 1874 rifle arrived. It had been manufactured by the “Shiloh Rifle Mfg. Co., Farmingdale, N.Y.” and bore the “Old Reliable” stamp on its barrel. Just as I had ordered, my new rifle was their No. 1 Deluxe Sporter Model, with a 30-inch octagon barrel, weighing 10½ pounds, and was chambered for the .45-110 27⁄8-inch cartridge. I had purchased the rifle for hunting – as I had specified – and it came fitted with the basic Shiloh sporting tang sight and blade front sight.

Some years before, my interest in such a rifle had been piqued by an Elmer Keith article. Keith had described the long-range accuracy and effectiveness of the 1874 Sharps rifles with its heavy black-powder loads and cast bullets. By that time, I had begun hunting almost exclusively with smokeless powder and cast bullet loads in older calibers. Hunting with the larger Sharps cartridges loaded with cast bullets and black powder, seemed to me a logical extension of that interest. So, once I learned of the new Shiloh reproductions, it was just a matter of time until I placed an order for one.

As you can imagine, my first thought upon receiving the rifle was to shoot it. I was eager to test its accuracy with black-powder loads and some heavy bullets. But I was about to be disappointed.

Now, remember – this was early 1982, and there was little contemporary information concerning the correct way to load those old, large black-powder cartridges. For instance, publication of the classic “SPG Lubricants BP Cartridge Reloading Primer,” by Steve Garbe and Mike Venturino was still about 10 years away, as was Paul A. Matthews’ book,