Howdy
This is my 45/70 Pedersoli Sharps.
You will notice this one is very simple. No checkering on the stock, just a simple finish. No fancy pewter fore end cap.
When I started looking for a Sharps around 20 years ago, I looked at all the fancy ones (Not Shiloh or any of the high end ones, just the imports)
The first thing I noticed was the ones with fancy checkering mostly had pretty poorly executed checkering. I also noticed the ones with a pewter fore end cap had it pinned in place from the bottom, not cast in place as was the traditional way to attach one. Most of these were also poorly done, with the pin poorly finished and standing out like a sore thumb. So I decided not to buy a Sharps that I would be unhappy with every time I looked at it.
This one has the features I was looking for. Double set triggers, pistol grip, and most important, a 'shotgun style' butt. Most of the imports have a deeply curved crescent shaped butt plate. These should be avoided like the plague if one is going to be shooting stout recoiling loads. Unless one knows how to shoot one, the sharp points at the top and bottom of the crescent will dig into the meaty part of your shoulder and it will hurt like all get out. There is a technique for shooting rifles with a crescent shaped butt plate, but I am not going to get into that here.
My normal load for this rifle is 70 grains of Schuetzen FFg Black Powder under a 405 grain cast bullet. That is it all the way on the right in this photo. I do not recall of the top of my head how much my Sharps weighs, but it is heavy enough that recoil just shoves me back a bit, Black Powder recoil does not have the sharp impulse of most Smokeless ammo.
I use the same load in my antique Trap Door.
Regarding 45/70 vs 45/90, 4/110, and all the other longer variants: If you are going to be shooting Smokeless, there is no point using any thing longer than 45/70. You can load all the Smokeless that is safe to shoot into a 45/70 and there will still be air inside the case. No point going for the longer, more difficult to find brass. By the way, modern Sharps replicas are completely safe to shoot with Smokeless loads, from a recognized loading manual. No way I would shoot Smokeless in my antique Trap Door.
I bought my Sharps on sale at DIxie Gunworks about 20 years ago. It was marketed as the Silhouette Model. I paid $800 for it back then, as I say it was on sale. I just looked it up in the Dixie catalog, the same model is listed today, but it is listed for $1925. Plus it is apparently unavailable right now.
https://www.dixiegunworks.com/index/page/product/product_id/8340/category_id/314/product_name/CR0415+PEDERSOLI+SHARPS+M1874+SILHOUETTE+RIFLE,+.45-70
Also, let me say here that Pedersoli makes excellent rifles. Some of the top BPCR shooters shoot Pedersolis, they do not take a back seat the more expensive American brands.
