44-77 and the Buffalo Runners

[Don McDowell]

Keep in mind that money was extremely tight at that time, so it's pretty likely that if someone entered the hide trade with a 44-77, he likely didn't buy another rifle during his time on the prairie.
When you look at Sharps sales records, over their course of years in business,they made 800 or less rifles in 50 caliber anything. That number doesn't include the reman of the percussion carbines retrofitted to cartridge guns. The 44-77 was by the end of Sharps the second most chambered rifle, only superseded by the 45-70, which likely the numbers of the 45 2.1 were bolstered by the amount of "military" rifles and carbines and "hunter" in both 74 and 78 models.
There are rifles chambered in most of the Sharps cartridges in various local museums that are are accredited to pioneers of the community who shot buffalo.
So what it boils down to is pick your rifle, pick your barrel contour, and most likely someone somewhere used it to shoot buffalo.
Wyatt Earp said he used a 12 ga. shotgun..