50-90 paper?

[Don McDowell]

[

Gentlemen, if I may ask an amateurish question, could drilling a buttstock and adding weight, or taking weight from any other part of the rifle somehow change the overall harmonics of an otherwise good shooting rifle?

Yes it does, it also throws the balance of the gun off, even if there's already a hole in that stock that will hold a weight or one of those mercury recoil reducers.

[rdnck]

You bet it will screw one up. BTDT. Shoot straight, rdnck.

[Gunner500]

Thanks for the conformation Don and RDNCK, with Kurt bringing up finding a null point, I thought there may be something to these rifles being able to 'ring' true without being interrupted.

And Kurt Sir, You were exactly right about the 50-90, and the bullet weight, length and speed you recommended, as well as hanging on to a 50, breaking a good trigger and not letting the rifle torque, I was indeed heavily rewarded yesterday, Wife was up with a dim light on last night enjoying a glass of wine before bed checking some work on her laptop, I was laying flat on my back with a stupid smile on my face reflecting the days work with the 50, she ask, "what's so funny?" I said, Sharps Rifles Dear, she laughed and said, I should have known.

Thanks again Kurt, Stephen, Bill and Don, and everyone else that saved me a crap load of time, work, expense and possible head-butting the brick wall aggravation.

[Don McDowell]

Gunner keep in mind that the 50 with a fast twist will shoot very well with bullets in the 550-600 gr bullet range. Dick Savage shot one extremely well in the gong matches for a couple of years using a 600 gr bullet.
I think finding the null point on a barrel with a hammer and talcum powder is somewhat folly. Think about it for a minute the bullet going down the barrel being shoved by 16K +- pressure and 1000 degree heat will torque the barrel much different than a rubber mallet on the top flat. Most rifles will shoot very well with the barrel in the sticks about the length of a dollar bill from the muzzle, or immediately in front of the forearm.
More important is to watch the position of the sticks and the shooter. If you are in the sticks and you have to raise or lower your body in shooting position to center the target you're going to get vertical. If you sticks lean forward or back you're going to get vertical. If when you sight down the barrel and have you're not in a comfortable position and the sights aren't on the same plane as the center line of the target , you need to raise or lower the front rest. Think of the rifle in the front rest more like a fulcrum point.

[Kurt]

Don, I don't think harmonics is a folly. I proved it to myself and I do see the decline of verticals when I hold the barrel on the sticks at the null point.
I just did a search on high speed video barrel harmonics and I found some very interesting video's, the first one in particular with finding the spot with the Sharps. I never done this with tape marked every inch and actually recording the bullet impact using a true reference marks on the barrel but I have moved my barrel on the sticks and I saw the changes in vertical.

Also a natural point of aim makes a difference by the pressure you force on your barrel. I lay the barrel on the sticks close my eyes and get into position and open my eyes looking through the sights to see where that barrel is pointing. I move my position till that natural point of aim is on the target when I open my eyes. This puts reduced pressure on the rifle. This also has saved me from dirt diggers when I let a round go before I was down into position and the rifle went off by making contact with the trigger to hard.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=sha...CA9B65491D

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Bar...ORM=VDRVRV

[Gunner500]

Thanks for the info Don, I must be holding my rifle at the correct [fulcrum] null point so to speak for it to shoot that well for me yesterday, I simply cannot shoot ANY iron sighted weapon even close to that good, good info about stick shooting too, I've never 'cross sticked' a Sharps rifle.

Kurt, something to be said for what you both said, I was talking to rdnck last night on the phone, my old original 45-110 has the barrel flats worn down substantially more about 6 inches in front of the forearm, I have to believe it was the result of thousands if not tens of thousands of rounds fired from cross sticks, and we may as well admit it, if that rifle didn't shoot well at that placement, that old man wouldn't have been alive long enough to shoot it that much, death by man, beast or starvation would have insured that to be true.

[Gunner500]

Have had rain, sleet, ice and snow the last three days, I'm ready to do some more shooting, need to reprove my results before I load the remaining 97 Starline cases, dang the bad weather!

[rdnck]

I hear you about the lousy weather. Light snow and sleet yesterday has changed to a slow, cold all day and night rain. I might get some ammo loaded and patches cut today, but that's about it. Shoot straight, rdnck.

[Gunner500]

Yessir, pure misery, I did just have some quick fun, you would have liked it, went out on the back porch to get some wood, caught movement in the upper pasture, turned around and grabbed my bino from the table by the door, a big black dog with a white chest patch was standing up there in the rain looking at 80 head of first bred red angus'
I grabbed the little Marlin lever 22LR and jacked about a dozen rounds over his head as he tore out headed East., the first time I had a neighbor hear me do that was over 20 years ago, he called and ask, what are you shooting neighbor? I said nothing, just running dogs off, then told him when you hear one big BOOM and nothing else, something just got shot ; ] I wont shoot someone's dog just for being on my property and looking at my cattle, chasing is an all together different matter.
That coyote yesterday pestering a cow down calving caught a 210gr Nosler LRAB from a 300 mag at 569 yards, he no longer has any restaurant menu item concerns.

[Semtav]

Also a natural point of aim makes a difference by the pressure you force on your barrel. I lay the barrel on the sticks close my eyes and get into position and open my eyes looking through the sights to see where that barrel is pointing. I move my position till that natural point of aim is on the target when I open my eyes. This puts reduced pressure on the rifle.

Kurt
What do you do when our natural aiming point is about 2 bubbles off level.
Don't know why but some guns just naturally want to lay off kilter !!