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PRESS REVIEW
Comanche warriors suddenly surrounded
young Billy Dixon and 27 buffalo hunters.
The Kiowa medicine man told the warriors
that his medicine made them invisible
to the bullets of the “white eyes.” When
Dixon fired his Sharps sporting rifle and
blew a Kiowa from his horse at 1,538
yards, the Indians got a sharp dose of
reality.
Just threemonths later on September
26, Creedmoor on New York’s Long Island
hosted a crowd of more than 5,000 people
gathered to witness the first international
shooting competition in America.
Armed with their Sharps rifles, the
American team had a good lead on the
800-yard targets, but the Irish team gained
on them at 900 yards.
By the time they had finished
shooting at 1,000 yards, the Irish were
ahead of the Americans. In the end, the
match was determined by the very last shot
by the Americans.
Shooting a bullseye at 1,000 yards,
the Americans emerged the winners with
934 points to the Irish team’s 931.
The 1874-pattern Sharps was a
particularly popular rifle that led to the
introduction of several derivatives in quick
succession. It handled a large number of
.40 to .50 caliber cartridges in a variety of
loadings and barrel lengths.
Sharps made sporting versions from
the late 1840s until the late 1880s. After
the American Civil War, converted Army
surplus rifles were made into custom
firearms, and the Sharps factory produced
Models 1869 and 1874 in large numbers
for the commercial buffalo hunters and
frontiersmen.
These l arge -bore r i f l es were
manufactured with some of the most
powerful black powder cartridges ever
made. Sharps also fabricated special long-
range target versions for the then popular
Creedmoor style of 1,000-yard target
shooting.
The Lyman Ideal Sharps’s 1-in-18” twist rate
stabilizes bullets in the 240- gr. to 290-gr. range
well, although it has trouble with longer bullets
in the 310-gr. to 330-gr. range.
GUN DETAILS
S p e c i f i c a t i o n s
Lyman Ideal Model
Caliber:
.38-55 Win •
Barrel:
26 inches
Weight:
6 pounds (empty) •
Stocks:
Walnut •
Sights:
Lyman Tang rear, front globe
Action:
Falling block •
Finish:
Engraved Stainless •
Price:
$ 1,595
The 1874 Sharps rifle fostered
legends, but when the great buffalo herds
were decimated, the need for a heavy long-
range rifle went with them. Perhaps, if
Christian Sharps had designed the Lyman
Ideal scaled-down version of the original
1874 Sharps at the time, his company
might have survived.
One hundred thirty years after the
last original Sharps Model 1874 rolled
off the line, Lyman Products celebrates
the legendary rifle with their Ideal Model
Sharps. “Lyman was approached by
Chiappa Firearms to see if we would have
an interest in teaming up with them on
the Sharps rifle,” says Lyman’s TomGriffin.
“After we looked it over and made some
changes to personalize it, we felt that it
would be a good fit for our line.”
Although Sharps never made such a
rifle, the Lyman Ideal Sharps is basically a
scaled downModel 1874. “It is a somewhat
loose version of the 1874,” Griffin added,
“not an exact scaled down reproduction.
The .38-55Win caliber was chosen,
since it is a popular cast bullet caliber, and
it ties in well with our line of bullet casting
equipment.
The .22 Hornet version was chosen
simply because it seemed to be a really
fun, quiet cartridge to shoot in it with
little recoil.”
To learn more about the scaled-
down version of the 1874 Sharps rifle, I
contacted Ron Norton of Chiappa. “The