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Charles Daly’s Little Sharps for Juniors
Posted by Junior Shooters
By: Ray Walters
Charles Daly, long known as an importer of fine shotguns and handguns, has once again expanded their line of firearms by bringing to America a full line of Old West style firearms for cowboy action shooters and those who simply want to own a little piece of American history without putting out the thousands of dollars necessary to purchase an original Colt Single Action Army or a Winchester lever-action rifle. Along with their full line of “cowboy” firearms, Charles Daly has introduced a new single-shot rifle in the long standing tradition of the Christian Sharps “buffalo rifles” that are just as much a part of the history of the Old West as the afore mentioned rifles and revolvers. This new, and highly young shooter friendly Sharps replica has been branded the “Little Sharps” by the folks at CD and one truly fine little shooter it is.
(Size contrast between the Little Sharps and a full-sized 1874 Sharps Replica.)
True in nearly every detail to the original 1874 model, the Little Sharps is a reduced size version that is about three-fifths scale of the originals. With an overall length of 42 inches and a very manageable weight of 6.4 pounds, this is the perfect blend of old Sharps styling and user friendly compactness. The standard model comes equipped with a tang-mounted aperture sight and drift adjustable front post sight. Stocked with straight grained black walnut and case-colored furniture, the Little Sharps is one very attractive rifle. 
Junior Shooters magazine received one of these little gems chambered in .38-55 WCF and fitted with a Leatherwood, Malcolm short scope. The .38-55 is one of the most versatile cartridges to come out of the late 1800s and is a mild shooting, very accurate round that is equally at home with black or smokeless powder. Using bullets ranging from 225 to 275 grains the .38-55 is adequate for taking all but the largest North American big game. And as a hunting arm is where his Little Sharps should shine. But for those not so inclined to chase four-footed critters around the woods the Little Sharps is also going to make a lot of cowboy action side-match competitors very happy. With about half the felt recoil of a .45-70 or even the very effective .40-65, the .38-55 Little Sharps is going to win more than a few side matches and do so very comfortably.
Not long after our Little Sharps came in, I set about gathering the ammunition that would be used to test the rifle. With a variety of hand loads and factory cast lead ammo from Black Hills, UltraMax, and Ten-X as well as jacketed soft point hunting loads from Winchester, it was off to the range to see how the Little Sharps would perform. After getting the Leatherwood scope sighted in at 50 yards, the Birchwood Casey targets were moved out to 100 yards. Shooting off a bench rest with sand bags, the results were very interesting to say the least. The UltraMax cartridges were a little sticky going in even though the bullet diameter was .377″ so I could only assume that the brass wall diameter may have been just a little on the thick side. The good news is that what the UltraMax lacked in ease of chambering it more than made up for where it really counts, the accuracy department.
As expected, the recoil was very mild even with Ten-Xs Game Load which is a pretty stiff load getting the 255-grain cast bullet out at a very respectable 1675 feet-per-second (fps). Perfect for the younger competitor and hunter. In the overall accuracy department the Little Sharps performed very well at the 50-yard distance, with the largest groups measuring 3.75″ or the Black Hills 255-grain FP to a small of .9″ for the Winchester jacketed soft point. The best hand load group came from a 255-grain Bear Creek Supply cast bullet and Blue Dot powder measuring 2.25″. All ammunition tested shot well enough to be effective at the ranges one should use this cartridge to hunt deer sized game. For a long-range side match use, several loads were very capable of hitting the steel buffalo out to 200 to 300 yards.
The Charles Daly Little Sharps is going to make a lot of Western-action shooters very happy not to mention a few young hunters who want to hunt with a more traditional firearm without the physical cost of lugging a 10 to 12-pound single-shot up and down the mountain.
Ballistic Information:
Load, Velocity, Accuracy
- Black Hills 225-gr. RNFP 1380 fps 3.75″
- Ultra Max 245-gr. RNFP 1165 fps 2.5″
- Ten-X 260-gr. Game Load 1675 fps 2.75″
- Ten-X 245-gr. RNFP 1500 fps 1.25″
- Winchester 255-gr. CXP JSP 1185 fps .9″
- 255 gr. Bear Cr. 13-gr. Blue Dot 1165 fps 2.25″
- 255gr. Bear Cr. 7-gr. Trail Boss 1170 fps 3.0″
- 245gr. Laser Cast. 10-gr. Unique 1210 fps 2.5″
- Ten-X 245-gr.RNFP Black powder 2.75″
Contact Information:
- Alliant Powder (Blue Dot & Unique): www.alliantpowder.com
- Bear Creek Supply (Northwest Shooter Supply): www.northwestshootersupply.com
- Black Hills Ammunition: www.black-hills.com
- Charles Daly: www.charlesdaly.com
- Hodgdon Powder (Trail Boss): www.hodgdon.com
- Ten-X Ammunition: www.tenxammo.com
- UltraMax Ammunition: www.ultramaxammunition.com
- Winchester Ammunition: www.winchesterammo.com
Copyright by: Junior Shooters & Junior Sports Magazines Inc. Jan 2009
Wow…I sure wish they had rifles like this when my sons were younger, they could have used it in the action matches and then my daughter could have used it after the boys grew up. What a tremendous idea. Charles Daly did a good thing on this one!