Sharps and Trapdoor Sporting

These are actual production stocks, showing the shaping of particular stock patterns. They can be carved in any wood you desire.

Trapdoor Sporting

Tradoor Springfields can be made up into very interesting sporting rifles.
I offer several patterns as seen in the photos below.

This a a Santa Fe Hawken stock adapted to the 73 lock, trigger bar and barreled action. The buttplate and toe kick are the Lehmann pattern from Track of the Wolf. This is the simplest conversion stock project as it requires no mods to the metal.

This is what I call the English Sporting pattern.  This is more complicated to complete than the Hawken pattern. It is cut for the issue lock and barreled action, but no trigger mortise is cut. I have heard reports of customers fitting set triggers. The options are limited only by your imagination and ability.

Select Quartersawn walnut

Finished Trapdoor Sporting Rifle, .45-70

Above is a rifle built by John King of Kila, MT, sorry for the poor photo. It features a Badger octagon barrel, .45-70.
John built a trick set trigger for it.

Below- is the English sporting pattern belonging to Don Belcher of Idaho. It became a collaborative job between Don and Mr. Richard Hart. Don tells me several efforts to purchase it from him were made, even before it was completed.

As to the wood, it is an old Claro blank, quartersawn cut, and exhibits textbook perfect layout and grainflow. Only the old trees were large enough to produce fiddleback throughout the blank, and offered the sawyers enough wood to cut out blanks like this

The English Sporting pattern is intended to be mounted with a screw and escutcheon on the barrel end. I did not think a barrel band would work, Don and Richard proved me wrong when he sent me a finished photo of how he used a barrel band instead, and as you can see, they did a heck of a nice job of it.

Here you can see they used the original trigger bar, bent to match the curve of the pistolgrip. I did not think the original trigger bar would work, but they pulled it off very well indeed. Crow ain't so bad when properly seasoned.

Here are 3 views of a rifle built by Mark Natale of Troy, Montana.  Mark came to my shop back in Idaho and selected a blank to be carved. Since he had something different in mind than what my patterns offered, he requested I carve the action and lock mortises, leaving the butt uncarved for him to shape himself.  
I would like to take credit for this, but the fact is, Mark's talent made it happen.  This is a rather unique stock blank.  Notice the butt end is english walnut grafted to Claro walnut.  If you look closely,  you can see the graft on the cheekrest. 
Come to think of it, that is fairly appropriate, being a Trapdoor Springfield "grafted" to an English sporting pattern.

Sharps 59-74 77&78 Borshardt

I have quite a number of patterns for the various Sharps models, some not shown here.  

Shiloh -1874- Patterns for straight grip and pistolgrip, factory and Long Range patterns  

C. Sharps, Montana Armoury- 1874-  Pistolgrip and straight grip Long Range Patterns  

Pedersoli 1874, High comb straight grip and factory pistolgrip  

Original 1874 Sharps, Sporting straightgrip shotgun, Military with patchbox.  

1878 Borshardt- Long Range pattern, one of my most popular patterns, available with or without Cheekrest        

There are quite a few variations and even more reproductions by makers both foreign and domestic. Call for help when ordering.

John King's Long Range pattern

Customer finished Borschardt Long Range

Below is a nice Borshardt Long Range pattern with cheekrest, a rare variation offered by Sharps.
Ebony tipped forearm in quarter sawn English walnut.
The patterns were built by John King of Kila, Mt.

A finished 78 Borshardt by Curt Hardcastle, with a ebony tip schnabble porting forearm.

Traditional Sharps Pistolgrips

Ebony Sharps Grip on Rem. Rolling Block. Credit to Pat Littlechild and Dave Yount, Spokane, WA.

This is my new grip pattern, about 25% larger than my earlier grips shown in ebony.
This particular grip was carved from Brazilian Kingwood.
I had a very old charred slab of this wood in the shop, it was pretty scruffy looking and very heavy. I decided to cut into it for the heck of it. What a surprise! It was very dense, and research
discovered it to be Brazilian Kingwood, a true Rosewood. So called because Louis XIV of France imported it for his royal furniture. This wood is harder and denser than Ebony, it will not float in water.
I decided to try it for a Sharps Grip, and it really turned out nice. The picture shows it without finish, just sanded and lightly buffed. Apparently it does not accept an oil finish very well, but does nicely with an occasional waxing. This grip stands just over 1 1/2 inches high, and the tight
growth rings testify to the slow growth, 30 years or so to grow that wide.
I am offering these and other exotic woods like Screwbean Mesquite and high grade Circassian Walnut for 125. Yeah, Ebony too, but frankly that is a common wood by comparison...

These are traditional pistolgrips for the straightgrip Sharps. While these do not offer as good a hold as a true pistolgrip stock, they are more economical than converting a straight grip rifle to pistolgrip.  When done correctly, they are one of the finest details on a custom rifle.  Before you order one, consider that these are NOT a hand filling grip, and you will be not be satisfied if that is what you expect.

Ebony grip, $125.00 
Other woods can be ordered, priced accordingly.
-No hardware included-

My friend Curt Hardcastle was kind enough to send me pictures of his installation of a Treebone ebony sharps grip.  The picture above this shows the grips in the raw as he received it. The pictures below show the same grip, AFTER Curt shaped and finished it.  These are absolutely stunning when done well, and this job is as good as it gets.  He has gone to considerable effort to refine the shape of the grip, and the customer that had him do the job is lucky to get this level of work.  I believe this cost about $250.00, and no excuses are required.

Position the grip so the lever can close and the rear tang screw is clear.

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