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    The Black Powder Cartridge News Winter 2021

    The Black Powder Cartridge News Winter 2021

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    Product Reviews

    Oregon Barrel Company

    column By: Mike Nesbitt | December, 21

    This .50/70 Sharps rifle was “built around” the Oregon barrel.
    This .50/70 Sharps rifle was “built around” the Oregon barrel.
    Sometimes a special rifle needs a special barrel and that’s just the way it was when I started putting together the idea for a new Sharps “buffalo gun” in .50/70 caliber. To my way of thinking, most .50-caliber barrels made today have rates of twist that are too fast for the relatively light bullets of the .50/70 and even the .50/90 when the authentic 473-grain paper-patched bullets are used. So an order was sent to Oregon Barrel Company, in Springfield, Oregon, for the barrel I wanted.

    Oregon Barrel Company makes custom rifle barrels (or smoothbore barrels) for muzzle-loaders and cartridge guns to the customer’s specifications. If they can’t make the barrel that’s wanted, they’ll say so. In my case, they could, and did make a .50-caliber barrel for me, using 4140 steel, with a .510-inch groove diameter, rifled with a rate of twist at one turn in 32 inches, with a 30-inch length and large enough in outside diameter to be profiled to make a No. 1¾ Heavy barrel. The barrel was ordered as a .50-caliber rifled barrel blank (in the round), which I immediately forwarded to C. Sharps Arms, Incorporated.

    On the inside.
    On the inside.

    That’s the way to send a barrel to C. Sharps Arms because they do their own barrel profiling, which means the finished rifles are now more authentic because the barrels are properly tapered and sized. I had asked them what diameter the barrel blank needed to be in order to be cut for the No. 1¾ Heavy size and that was just the information Oregon Barrels needed. This also means that all of the “inside the barrel” work, other than chambering, was done by Oregon Barrel Company while all of the outside work, including profiling, the distinctive Hartford collar, polishing and bluing were done by C. Sharps Arms.

    The inside of the barrel looks very good to me. That’s about all I can say other than to point out how the barrel is rifled with six lands and grooves, which have approximately equal width. I have not slugged the bore and, frankly, the gun is performing so well I don’t see any reason to. We usually slug barrels to determine what might be wrong and there’s nothing wrong with this barrel’s bore and performance.

    That lone “10” stretches an otherwise very good group.
    That lone “10” stretches an otherwise very good group.
    My first shots with this new barrel were taken on the firing line at Quigley, using 20 rounds loaded with 425-grain paper-patched bullets (cast from a KAL mould) with generous “cookies” of BPC lube beneath the bullets in the load, using 65 grains of Olde Eynsford 2Fg powder. Even with that amount of lube, the bore was wiped after every shot for the first 15 rounds. Following that, the bore was wiped after every two rounds for just a couple more shots. That was done to break-in the barrel and to get the barrel steel’s microscopic pores as “pre-lubed” as possible. Following that, loads using Accurate Molds’ 52-450L2 grease groove bullets (sized to .512 inch) with the same powder charge, were used along with a blow tube for fouling control.

    After sight-in shooting (mainly to get sight settings), the Quigley match of 48 shots was fired with this new gun. My score was 22 hits; one more hit than I got with “Hefty Hannah,” my heavy .44/77, two years ago. That means, according to my empty brass count, this rifle was fired 94 times before ever being tried on paper. Also, the paper target at 100 yards, received the first shots fired with this rifle that were closer than 350 yards. No problems there and the rifle seemed to be more than ready to be sighted-in for the shorter ranges.

    It might seem like I’ve talked more about the rifle than the barrel, but the barrel is certainly the heart of the rifle and it wouldn’t get any praise if the barrel wasn’t doing its job very well. I’m delighted with this gun and its performance. Also, this is my third barrel from Oregon Barrel Company and I will not hesitate to order from them again.

    For pricing and questions, contact Oregon Barrel Company at 247 South Second Street, Springfield, Oregon, 97477. Phone: (541) 741-4118 or visit thegunworks.com or send an email to info@thegunworks.com.

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