By Mike Nesbitt | Contributing Editor
It’s no secret that I do enjoy shooting and reloading for the .50-70 Government cartridge.
That was our first centerfire cartridge, adopted in 1866, and, of course, it certainly favors black powder. Fairly lately I’ve been joined in my admiration for the .50-70 by Mike Moran and while we were shooting, he said, “I’m going to use my .50-70 at Quigley.” That was not a surprising statement, in fact, to me it was a welcome thing to hear.
My reply, which came rather quickly, was, “Okay, I’ll join you.” So, our attentions became more focused, on getting ready to use our big .50-70 Sharps rifles at the Matthew Quigley Buffalo Rifle Match this coming June.
Shooting a .50-70 at the Quigley Match might not be the most popular or practical choice, although there are really only few and slight disadvantages in making such a selection.
If we were to classify the Quigley Match, we’d have to say it was a mid-range match with only one long-range target. Targets for long-range matches begin at 800 yards. Quigley’s target number 1 is the buffalo, a full-sized steel silhouette, out at 805 yards. (While that is target #1, it probably isn’t going to be the first target we shoot at.) All other targets are positioned at distances of 600 yards or closer, down to the “buckets” (which are offhand targets) at 350 yards. So, shooting a .50-70 at those distances is no problem.
Where the .50-70 can, and does, take a back seat to other calibers is in bucking the wind. The 450-grain bullets for the .50-70 simply do not have a high ratio when its bullet length is compared to the caliber or bullet diameter, and longer, heavier bullets can fight the wind better. This we realize. And there is wind at Quigley, we realize that too.
Also, the .50-70 does not have a velocity quite as high as some of the other black powder cartridges, some of which were specifically designed for long range shooting. This is another factor that we must be aware of so we can make our judgements in sight elevation and windage accordingly. Being ready to shoot the .50-70 at those distances, perhaps in the wind that Quigley is famous for, will be our greatest asset.
With these things in mind, it might be understandable that we are not really trying to shoot in the Quigley Match with the main idea of winning it. We’ll do our best, that’s for sure. But our real desire is to simply shoot in the Quigley Match with those .50-70 rifles because, and we might find out, we could be the only shooters there using the old Government .50s.
Of course, we really can’t expect to do anything new with the old or new .50-70 rifles because in the almost 160-year lifespan of that cartridge it has been used for almost everything. Actually, I shot the match at Quigley before with my .50-70 Sharps, that was back in 2021 when the rifle was new. I had picked it up at the C. Sharps Arms shop while on the way to Quigley and it was “broken in” during practice days just before the match got going. That, honestly, wasn’t my hard cast plan but that’s the way things turned out. After getting and trying that rifle, there was no way it was going to linger in the tent, back in camp, while I was out on the firing line.
A couple of the days (and it was hot that year!) were spent sighting the new rifle in and then our first target in competition was the bucket, shot offhand, at 350 yards. I hit it only once, but I did hit it. Then we moved to the buffalo at 805 yards where I scored on that target three times. For the octagon, target #2 at 600 yards, I got five hits, then four on the “postage stamp” at 530 yards, followed by six hits on the 403-yard diamond, and finally finishing with just three more hits on the second postage stamp at 417 yards. That gave me 22 hits with the .50/70 which was one more hit than what I had gotten with my heavy .44-77, “Hefty Hannah,” two years before.
My experience at Quigley with my .50-70 gives me a slight edge on Mike, but actually only in the fact that I already have some sight settings. Of course, those might change with weather conditions, such as a headwind, or some forgotten changes in my loads.
This .50-70 rifle of mine is a fairly standard Hartford Model of the 1874 Sharps, with a 30-inch full octagon #1 ¾ Heavy barrel with a Hartford collar. That heavy barrel gives this rifle a total weight, which includes the tang sight, of almost 14 pounds. It’s an easy rifle to shoot and that weight, while it does “add to the load” for offhand shooting, is really a blessing for steadiness and recoil absorbing when shooting over cross-sticks from the sitting position. And the sitting position is what I favor with this rifle the very most.
Mike liked my .50-70 Sharps well enough that he ordered one almost exactly like it, also from C. Sharps Arms. Rifles, of course, all have little identities of their own and no two rifles are exactly alike. They might cast the same shadow but outstanding differences in their grain in the wood of the stocks or brightness and color differences in the color casehardening of the receivers will mean the almost twin rifles will have their own identity. On top of that, my rifle has the Hartford collar on the barrel, just ahead of the receiver and Mike Moran’s does not. His rifle’s barrel remains with the octagon shape right to the gun’s receiver, as many original Sharps rifles did. In addition, the sights on our two .50-70 rifles are not quite the same.
Even so, our rifles are alike enough that after one of our shooting sessions, Mike picked up my rifle, wrapped it in his blanket gun cover, and took it home. That was okay, after all, he cleaned it very well. I simply grinned and did the same thing with his. Our experience did nothing more than make us more careful when shooting together.
The loads we use in those .50-70 rifles are almost the same. I like shooting the 450-grain bullets from Accurate Molds’ #52-450L2, a bullet that I did some of the design work on with more generous lube grooves after experiencing some shooting with a bullet that did not carry enough lube. With that other bullet, accuracy was gone after three shots, and I mean “gone” enough that a paper target could not be hit. That 450-grain bullet is well lubed with BPC bullet lube, from C. Sharps Arms, and loaded over 65 grains of Olde Eynsford 2F powder. Out of the 30-inch barrel, this load sends the bullet on its way at 1210 feet per second, which is alright for a .50-70. Mike Moran uses the same powder charge but favors somewhat heavier bullets, selecting Accurate Molds’ #52-460N. He says those bullets, when cast with the soft alloy he uses, weighs 473 grains. In a pinch, we could use each other’s ammunition.
In order to get some sight settings at distances longer than 200 yards, Mike elected to use his .50-70 rifle in a silhouette match, at the Upper Nisqually Sportsman’s Club where targets are placed out to 500 meters (about 550 yards). He did rather well in that match, outshooting me by one hit while I was shooting my scope-sighted .45-70. That’s okay, he outshot me on the pigs at 300 meters by two but I outshot him on the rams at 500 meters by one. It was a good day of shooting and Mike got some good sight settings written down in his sight book in addition to winning a 5-pin on the pigs.
Moran will need more “numbers” than those in order to shoot well at Quigley. But during the week before the actual match starts, registered shooters are allowed to use the range and the targets for taking shots to complete their sighting-in. We’ll both be doing that along with every other shooter who will participate in the Quigley match. Not only will we both get sight settings for those long shots, but on all of the shorter Quigley targets as well. In other words, we can’t risk an ammunition shortage at Quigley.
More practice and preparations are being done on our home range and in our club’s matches. One of those matches was our annual .50-70 match where Mike did very well, claiming the 3rd-place prize and outshooting me in the 100- and 200-yard match like a true champion. We don’t have time or space right now for all of my excuses, so let’s just pass on this while I comment on how it looks like I might be needing more excuses.
Next comes another of our Old West Centerfires matches and we’re both going to be using our .50-70 Sharps rifles in that, doing our best to build-up our points for the annual aggregate which is awarded in November. Every match we can find will see our .50-70 rifles as we do our best to let those rifles become very familiar with us, maybe so those rifles get to know us inside and out, just the same way that we want to know those rifles.
Just before we go to Quigley, we’ll have our annual Buffalo Camp which includes a “Little Quigley Match” that uses similar targets to the big Quigley match at shorter distances, but those targets are highly reduced in size. That might be some of the best practice of all and you can feel assured that a report on that Buffalo Camp, including the “Meat Hunt” and the “Black Powder Revolver Match” will be written up.
In addition to shooting in those matches, we’re also experimenting with little changes in our loads. One example could be seen in the load with paper patched bullets I used in the .50-70 match, which, for one reason or another, did not work well for me. But using those bullets did add to our experience with the .50-70s and the paper patched bullets will certainly be tried again.
While I’ve talked more about shooting yet to come than the shooting we’ve done, you can expect to be hearing about the matches we’ll be using as stepping-stones prior to the big doin’s at Quigley. That might even let you watch for some improvements in scores and performance as our practice goes along. I do hope you’ll be able to note some improvement…
