My Freund Sharps

[Shutinlead]

Of all the vintage single shots I dabble in building and rebuilding the Sharps has never really made the list of projects for me. Shiloh and C-Sharps both make exceptional rifles and having a couple or more of these in the safe has always scratched this itch. That was all fine and dandy until seeing and fondling an original Sharps modified by the Freund Brother’s – now it’s got my attention.
A friend of mine that makes molds and sells casting of these vintage rifle actions, Rodney Storie, shared a copy of one he has in process – it has several of the improvements the Freund Bros did giving me some insight to their way of thinking. Following a post on another forum about some of my projects I discovered that there is quite a following and a broad knowledge base out there regarding this topic. I’m sure that some of the features and the processes I’m about to present are not exactly as the Freund bros. did, but I’m OK with that and will welcome comments and constructive criticism. I have seen and been told that the modifications varied considerably from one to another, coming from the repair industry and the world of mining I understand that completely. I make repairs on equipment daily, often on the same type of equipment and each time doing something a little different – sometimes it’s an improvement, sometimes getting the same results but the view was different.
I started with a casting I picked up from a guy on the internet. I’d had it kicking around in my mess for a few years without any ideas or intention attached. Upon further study of this casting, I noticed that mortice opening as cast, was real small and the normal front recess found in most Sharps wasn’t even cut. A Freund modification I noticed from the very beginning was that this area where the barrel stubs protrudes through, was generally filled in by Freund – I could eliminate this step without doing anything.
My first step in this project was to mill the outsides of the action machined to give me square sides to reference to – a place to begin… The action sides cleaned up with real light cuts and still left .040” for finishing. Next step - get the mortise of this action cut and squared up. A couple years ago I found a small vintage slotter and decided it was something I couldn’t live without… I had experimented with it after it arrived but this was one of it’s first projects. Glad it’s not a high use machine in the shop, I set this action up in it expecting to see a little spare time to work on it in a couple days, it took just over a month before I had a chance to finish the mortice – working on it a few minutes in the mornings before the phone started ringing and chaos began.
With the mortice cut, primarily to cleanup – but going to a size I did a previous Sharps casting to – I was content. My gage from the other fit nicely and things look square and true. I started machining a breech block and wedge.
I'll add more soon...
Greg
               

[Shutinlead]

The wedge from what I could decipher from the samples, starts at the bottom of the mortice (.050” thick) with a slight taper (.090” thick) to almost the centerline of the bore where a radius (around .250”) takes the dimension out to about .230” thickness on this wedge. This dimension is carried up straight to the top of the mortise. This wedge, is attached to the receiver by two screws coming from the outside of the receiver in. In the actions I’ve seen, these screws appear to be straight across from each other like maybe the Bros. drilled straight through? The wedge appeared to have a little movement and if a person was to drill these somewhat out of line from each other, the wedge would be held a little more rigid?

The block now is where the fun begins. Making it to fit the mortice, matching the taper, and getting it snug when raised to battery, sounds simple doesn’t it… how close and smooth do you want it to be? It’s a process and I’ll go into more details about this as it develops - it’s hand fitting with a fine tooth file and small stones.
I decided that before I could cut the slots for Freunds double extractors, I needed to machine the threads in the action. The original Sharps call for a 1.125” x 10 thread per inch modified square. I don’t quite understand what’s modified about the square thread but I cut mine to standard square thread dimension. That’s using the formula of 1/2P for depth and width. My odd-ball fixture makes setting up this in a lathe a fairly simple operation. Another note here, it’s my guess here that the ODG’s used the square thread based on the theory that they didn’t exert any outward force on the receiver like a v-thread would do, and majority of the force and stress applied was in a linear direction.
My next step is to cut a relief for the extractor cut, then the extractor cut in the action casting all so I can locate the cuts in the new breech block for the same.
               

[Don McDowell]

Good stuff Greg
, thanks

[everetto]

Your project is awesome, and your work looks very impressive! Keep us posted.