50-2" Sharps

[Mike]

In Sellers' book he mentions the Sharps .50 X 2" cartridge and I must ask if anyone knows more about it? Sellers does mention it was available with either 457 or 500 grain bullets but never mentions a powder charge. Do you guess this was simply a Sharps attempt to make their own version of the .50/70 or was it perhaps a .50/75 loading? It was, according to Sellers, dropped in 1876 which is when the move to Bridgeport was made. Has anyone out there seen one of these cartridges or have any additional info? Shoot sharp, Mike

[powderburner]

it is a real ctg and was a 2 inch case , there was a couple emptys at adobe walls I believe. they most likely replaced it with the 2.5 when they slowed down on making 50s as a catalogue item.

[Mike]

Dean, I rely on Sellers again, he says the .50-2" and the .50-2 1/2" were both introduced during the same month, July 1872. And they were probably both dropped from the catalog at the same time too, as standard chamberings, in 1876. I was really wondering if anyone had some load information for the 2" cartridge. Just looking for a new wrinkle. Shoot sharp, Mike

[bobw]

Gun dealer friend of mine bought a 50-2" by accident a few years ago, he thought it was a 63 conversion gun in 50-70 and the seller thought it was too. My friend mentioned he had got a conversion gun and would I like to see it? So I'm checking it out and first thing I note was no 3groove rifling and when I looked at the side plate it all smacked me in the face as it was sideplate that resembled a 74 not a ground off 63. He wanted $2500 and I didn't have it so I told him to hang on till I got my copy of Sellers for reference and sure as hell it was not a conversion but an original 69 carbine, further more when I stuck the chamber with a sized 50-2.5" a 1/2 stuck out wallah a 2" 50, dead ringer for the gun on page 208 of Seller's with the serial # in the right range. I told him he better crank the price to $7500 an see what happens . There were less than 500 of these made and how few in 50 2" is anyones guess. Don't really believe they would hold more than another 10 grs or less. He doubled well over the 2500 price and yeah when I buy something from him I usually get a better price than Joe A Public does. bobw

[Mike]

Bobw, Thanks for sharing that very interesting story. I still wonder what Sharps reason or purpose was for the 2" case. It makes me wish Sellers had said more about it. Shoot sharp, Mike

[bobw]

No Sellers didn't say much on it as it's likely he just didn't know. Be my educated guess that the 2" version just didn't offer enough added value or improvement over the 50-70 which ammo was everywhere at that time. Both are a little anemic at extended range, as the buffalo hunt progressed one sees a continuing effort by hunters to move to flatter shooting cartridges for long shooting. That's fairly well documented. bobw

[Don McDowell]

I wonder if they did have trouble getting 90-100 grs of powder in the 2 inch case in the field? and that lead to dropping the 2 inch just shortly before they dropped all the 50's...

[Mike]

Hey Don, I'm really just guessing but according to Sellers the .50-2" and the .50-2 1/2" were both introduced in the same month. That leads me to believe that they never tried putting 90 or 100 grains of powder in the 2" case. I'm wondering if they used it for easier loading with 70 grains of powder under a 500 grain bullet. Like I said before, Sellers mentioned the bullet weights but not the powder charges. And while Sharps dropped their .50 calibers as standard chamberings in 1876, other makers kept offering the .50-2 1/2" but not the .50-2". That's probably why we can "remember" the .50-2 1/2" cartridge so well.

[Don McDowell]

Somewhere here not long ago, I think I read that the factory load for both the 2 and 2.5 inch cases was 100 grs.. Now if I could just find where I saw that...

[Mike]

Don, Hmmmm... That might mean the bullets were seated very shallow in the .50-2" case, somewhat like the .45-2.4" with 100 grain loads.