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Replica rifles are on the mark

Kirk Bryan, president of the Shiloh Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co., poses with an 1874 model Creedmoor rifle. Bryan's company crafts the only Sharps rifles in the world in which the parts still fit the originals, made more than 100 years ago. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Brett French Billings Gazette
Kirk Bryan, president of the Shiloh Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co., poses with an 1874 model Creedmoor rifle. Bryan's company crafts the only Sharps rifles in the world in which the parts still fit the originals, made more than 100 years ago. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

BIG TIMBER, Mont. – No detail, no matter how small, is overlooked in the creation of the replica Sharps rifles crafted by the Shiloh Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co. here.

They even make their own screws.

“We don’t have to depend on nobody,” said Kirk Bryan, the company’s president. “We’ve been down that road before.”

The Sharps rifle is one of the most celebrated in the history and folklore of America in the 1800s. Its unique design, a movable breech block that slid down for loading, allowed its marksman to fire rounds quicker and farther than contemporary muzzleloaders.

A skilled Sharps rifleman could fire 10 rounds a minute, compared with three for a muzzleloader. And the shooter didn’t have to stand up to load, exposing himself to enemy fire. In addition, the rifle was accurate out to 1,000 yards in the hands of a top-notch sharpshooter.

During its short and bloody life span, the Sharps helped the Union Army win the Civil War and aided in the near-extermination of the American bison from the Great Plains.

More than 140 years later, the mystique and lore surrounding the firearm have allowed the Shiloh Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Co. to maintain a steady worldwide business in a small Montana town.

“If you make a good product, people are going to come and get it,” Bryan said. “They’re a lifetime gun.”

Bryan’s father, Bob, bought the business in 1991 from Wolfgang Droege, who started the company in 1976 in Long Island, N.Y.

The company now employs 23 people and turns out anywhere from 800 to 1,100 rifles a year, depending on how fancy each rifle is made.

“If they were all exactly the same, we could do a lot more,” Bryan said.

Instead, each rifle is built to order, with the customer choosing the model of rifle, barrel weight and caliber and additional features such as the type of wood used in the stock, engraving and type of finish on the metal. Rifle calibers range from .30 to .54. Bryan said no one model is more popular than another.

When they’re done, the rifles can vary in price from $1,650 for a basic model on up to one rifle that will cost “a touch over $18,000” when finished, Bryan said.

Shiloh makes 15 different styles of rifles based on the Sharps Model 1863 percussion rifle and the Model 1874 cartridge rifle. There are rifles made just for target shooting, such as the 1874 Creedmoor. There is the 1874 Military Rifle and the famous 1874 Sharps Buffalo Rifle. From start to finish, a rifle will take about a month to a month-and-a-half to build with all of the parts, no matter how small, forged or made in-house.

What sets Shiloh apart from its competitors is that Shiloh’s parts are exact replicas of the originals. Any part in the new rifles will fit a Model 1863 or Model 1874 original.

“With these guns, if a guy breaks a firing pin, you can take one out of a new gun and put it in an old one – they’re all interchangeable,” Bryan said. “It’s the only Sharps in the world where the parts fit the original.”