Lucrezia and steel

[Eric Johanen]

Shot a quick little steel match on Saturday with Lucrezia my 50 90 Sharps. The rifle is a C. Sharps Bridgeport Model 74 with a #2 heavy 30 inch octagon barrel. Weighs 14 pounds and equipped with a Shiloh long staff Lawrence rear and a Hartford front with a bronze blade. I have to practice my sitting position as I am not yet solid on the sticks (that is what practice is for!). Targets were 4 sighter's, then 5 shots on a ram offhand and 10 shots on chickens at 200 yards. I elected to shoot the whole string sitting. Weather was heavy overcast, temperature 50's, wind from the Northeast about 10 mph. Just after the last shot of the match it switched to due east off the lake and blew in the fog and got a bit cooler. Humidity was 80%. Chickens were just too small for any feed back and I elected to run all my rounds on the ram. Because of that I did not shoot for score and just worked on hits on the ram. Due to the heavy overcast I had some trouble seeing the front sight and am sure under better light conditions I would have done much better. Sighter's were very close misses and first 2 shots for record were good central body hits. 3 more good hits in the middle of the string and my last two shots were again nice central body hits. Results: 7 for 15. I used the odd 20'th round and again scored a nice hit just a bit back from center. Due top the high humidity I elected to fire the string without any fouling control and all rounds chambered nicely and the rifle and load maintained accuracy through out. Load: Starline brass, CCI BR2 primers, 105 grains of Swiss 1 fg, .060 poly wad and a BACO 625 grain Creedmoor pan lubed and sized to .511 through a Lee push through size die. With the high humidity the fouling stayed very soft and chambering was easy and from the results on steel accuracy was maintained through out. Other shooter's were surprised I got 20 accurate shots without fouling control. So was I but it does show that under the right conditions barrel and load can shoot through fouling very well.