A pretty Sharpe and Hart

Jim submitted these photos of his Sharpe and Hart, built on a 1937 Oberndorf Mauser action for his father.  It's a very similar build to the one I own, but mine is on a FN action.    Thanks for Sharing, Jim!

I am loading some ammunition for my 7x61 tonight.  I haven't shot it in several years, and when I have, I haven't been able to get tons of accuracy out of it (3 inches at 100 yards being pretty common).

So, I'm trying something different.  Instead of loading lots of slow powder, I'm loading 4895.  It's still a hefty amount - 47.7 grains for a 162 grain Hornady boat tail soft point interlock.

I don't know if it will matter, but my thinking is that my particular rifle has a short (20 inch) barrel, and maybe it will like faster powders.  Stay tuned.

Well, believe it or not, Norma is still making new brass for Sharp and Harts.  Midway USA has some available. It's not cheap, but all and all, fairly reasonably priced, and a lot simpler than fire-forming your own.

Sharpe and Hart drops out of the Hornady manual

Well, I got the New Hornady manual (9th edition) seems to have dropped the Sharpe and Hart from its pages.

Adventures in Case Resizing

I learned a couple of important lessons last night:

• Just because it worked once, doesn't mean it will work twice.
  
• A hammer is a handy tool to have on the reloading bench.

I was taking my first run at reforming some 7mm Remington Magnum brass to 7 x 61 Sharpe and Hart. I doused the first case with lubricant and slowly ran it through the sizing die. It worked beautifully. So I tried to do it again. This time I managed to get the case to bind so strongly that I ripped the rim off attempting to extract it. Once I ran out of rim, I got a bit frustrated and grabbed a small hammer and a metal rod. After absolutely soaking the die and jammed case with WD-40 I removed the expander head and rod, placed my metal rod through the top of the die and into the case and started swinging. It took about five minutes, but eventually I forced it out.

Oh well. Live and learn I guess. I am still wonder why it worked so well the first time and then bound up so tightly the second.

Splitting cases seem to be an issue

One thing I am seeing a lot of is split cases. All of the brass I have is old (think 30-40 years old) and I am hoping that it has just grown brittle over time. Otherwise, this could very quickly become an expensive gun to load for. Of course, it is possible to reform 7mm Remington Magnum brass into Sharpe and Hart cases, but I'd rather not get into that if I don't have to.

Well, that was embarrassing

I shot about 40 rounds off of my elbow on a bench at 100 yards last Saturday. The best group I managed was about three inches. On the other hand, I did learn some useful things.

1. My gun seems to like hotter loads. The ones with 60 grains of 4350 behind a 160 grain bullet shot better than the ones with 54 grains behind the same bullet.

2. There wasn't an appreciable difference in recoil between the slower and hotter loads.

3. That being what it is, the gun still kicks more than enough to make me have some flinching issues.

Going forward, I plan to load some lighter rounds that I can shoot more comfortably in order to see if I can get my flinching under control.