Navy arms' Sharps No. 2 Creedmore: upon first seeing this Sharps, the author felt an irresistible attraction. Be careful — you may too

Guns Magazine, July, 2002 by Dick Williams

Not all the hardships Ulysses suffered on his voyage home from the Trojan War were caused by the gods. Because of his desire to experience the irresistible call of the Sirens, he had his men tie him to the mast and plug their ears so they would not succumb to the voices and steer the ship into the rocks. The story says Ulysses nearly went mad screaming at his crew to turn the ship. They could not hear his orders any more than they could hear the Sirens, so they continued on course to safety.

As gun lovers and shooters, we frequently experience some level of Ulysses' frustration at gun shows, usually after we have spent all our money and suddenly see that "irresistible" firearm. Perhaps it was the SHOT Show Sirens that placed the Navy Arms Sharps No.2 in my path last February.

It's A Beauty

Navy Arms' No. 2 Creedmore is a replica of the 19th century Sharps single shot rifle. The rifle is manufactured in Italy by the respected firm of Davide Pedersoli. Though chambered in the common .45-70, as are many of the replicas, this one is a bit different.

The first three things that caught my eye were the beautiful stock, the chrome vanadium steel receiver finished in electroless nickel, and the rather slender (for a Sharps), round barrel. Upon further examination, other interesting features surfaced, but let's stay with these three for now. The stock and forearm are beautifully grained dark walnut with nicely done checkering on the pistol grip and forearm. A couple of the checkering border lines extended a wee bit beyond the pattern, but you need to look carefully to see it.

The stock wears a wide, steel shotgun type butt plate that minimizes felt recoil compared to a deeply dished rifle type butt. Interestingly, close inspection shows that the buttstock is a lamination, consisting of at least four sections. Given the strength of modem adhesives, this construction is actually stronger than a one-piece stock. The joint lines are very faint, and are not readily apparent at first glance.

The forearm is slender (befitting the round barrel) and tapers toward the schnabel tip. Fit of wood to metal everywhere is quite good. And did I mention that the grain pattern was beautiful?

Receiver, loading lever, hammer, lockplate, and takedown lever all wear the electroless nickel finish, while the breech block and screws are nicely blued. The overall contrast of nickel, blued steel and richly grained walnut is very attractive. The barrel is finished in a matte blue and is 30 inches long, with a diameter that tapers from just under 1.1 inches near the breech to less than .9 inch at the muzzle, It is lighter and looks much smaller than the octagonal barrels common to most Sharps replicas. Combined with the tapered schnabel forearm, the rifle seems far more sleek and trim than other Sharps I've handled. Sitting on the rack, it practically begged me to pick it up and venture forth in search of buffalo.

A Wealth Of Sights

The sights on the Navy Aims Sharps No.2 are excellent, but as delivered, are probably more appropriate for target shooting than hunting or field use. Starting at the muzzle, the front sight consists of a large hood dovetailed into the barrel. A spring steel keeper retains any one of 12 sight inserts provided with the rifle.

The supplied inserts include apertures, posts of various widths, and cross hairs. I used the narrower post insert for all group testing and hunting. While I used it successfully on a pig hunt, the globe front sight tends to block a lot of light and obscure the shooter's view of the target area. This was a bit of a problem with dark animals in the low light conditions of early morning and late evening.

If the gun is to be used primarily for hunting, you might consider removing the globe front sight and replacing it with a conventional post. That said, it's great fun playing with different inserts at the range, and one of the inserts might work perfectly for a hunter with younger eyes than mine.

A traditional looking ladder rear sight is mounted on the barrel. With the ladder down, a U-notch is exposed for close range shooting. Elevating the ladder portion of the sight allows the slider to be set into one of 17 positive click stops. The standing ladder is graduated with eight horizontal lines marked from I to 8. I can't correlate the markings on the ladder to specific ranges because I didn't do my shooting with the ladder sight. I chose instead to employ the vernier tang sight, and for me, this is the jewel of the No. 2's sighting system.

Much Improved Vernier

Pedersoli has acted on input from black powder cartridge rifle shooters to greatly improve its vernier sight. The sight base mounts easily to the top tang of the receiver, but does require a little careful adjustment when initially installed. The sight tension spring, mounted on top of the sight base, must be correctly positioned to ensure that the staff of the sight will stand perpendicular to the shooter's line of sight when raised into shooting position. Given the very small hole in the aperture disk, slightly off the perpendicular means you can't see through the aperture.