False Muzzle

[Rick Mulhern]

I've often thought about the possibilities of how a Sharps would perform accuracy-wise if one had a false muzzle option of loading like onto the old caplock rifles. Most any decent Rifleman knows that H. M. Pope made the most accurate muzzle loading rifles of his era. The way I understand how they were made is that before the rifle was bored....the false muzzle portion was cut from the end of the barrel and that the pins were then installed into the cutoff portion and then the barrel pin holes were then drilled from the same template. After this was done the false muzzle was attached and held in position with a fixture while the barrel was bored then reamed and rifled with the false muzzle attached so as to have a continuous twist throughout the false muzzle. Pope claimed that he would guarantee that if one of his muzzle loading rifles was loaded with the bullet being seated through the false muzzle and the bullet seated with a ramrod that his rifles from 200 yards would group ten shots all within the area of a silver dollar with many groups fired by him less than that! If fixed ammunition were used seated through the breech he advised that most groups would only average around six inches or so. In addition he stated that if one of his rifles had the bullet seated from the breech end using a 'starter' that the ten shot groups would usually run around four inches. In the instance where the ten shot groups were silver dollar size or less....he was loading the bullet through the false muzzle using a ramrod and then loading a metallic case with powder and a wad and inserting the case so as to abut the base of the bullet. I wish I was a good enough craftsman to build me a rifle akin to my 45 2 7/8 Shiloh's with a false muzzle! That would be interesting!