Arms authorities immediately praised the percussion rifles and carbines that, at first, slowly trickled out of the Farmingdale, New York plant in early 1976, for their true to the original detail and quality. to actually develop tooling based on the dimensions of original parts. The availability of original parts from the Dixie Gun Works stockpile of Civil War salvage contributed greatly to the authenticity of the early Shiloh reproductions, allowing Shiloh Products Inc. In that short period of time, this pair had worked with Pinetree Casting ( a division of Ruger) to develop the tooling needed to turn out completely modern manufactured duplicates of the original Sharps breechloaders. And when these two entrepreneurs showed up at the National Sporting Goods Association show (predecessor to the SHOT Show) in January 1975, they displayed for the very first time a pair of newly assembled percussion ignition Sharps breechloaders - a 'New Model 1863 Rifle' and a 'New Model 1863 Carbine'. (At that time the author of this piece was working there as an antique firearms buyer and Dixie's catalog editor.) When they left, with them they took a huge selection or original Sharps parts to use for making new tooling. In late summer 1974, Mule' and his partner, Wolfgang Droege, visited Dixie Gun Works, in Union City, Tennessee. Sellers, the author of the acclaimed book, Sharps Firearms.

Not only did he read everything he could find in print, he also visited major museums, including the West Point Museum and the Smithsonian, consulted with leading Sharps experts and collectors in this country, and spent hundreds of hours looking over hundreds of original rifles. Through 19, Len Mule' devoted much of his life to researching Sharps breech-loading rifles and carbines. The company also offered quality lead furnaces as well, along with a few other bullet casting products. They were sold as the 'Shiloh IV' moulds. The four-cavity design of Mule's moulds earned them a solid reputation for producing a lot of round balls or Minie' bullets quickly - up to 400 per hour.

Before making the decision to completely manufacture a 'reproduction'of the famous breech-loaded rifles and carbines, he was manufacturing extremely high-quality bullet moulds for blackpowder shooters. And both were successful.Ī drafts man and technical illustrator by trade and blackpowder shooter by heart, Len Mule' was the real real mastermind behind what would become known as the Shiloh Sharps. firm known as Shiloh Products, Inc., the other a well established Italian manufacturer of high quality double shotguns known as IAB Arms. In the summer of 1974, two entirely different companies, separated by an ocean, independently set out to make a somewhat faithful modern-manufactured copy of the original Civil War era percussion Sharps breechloaders. It may or may not be entirely correct to claim that more rifles of Sharps' design have been built in the past 32 years than during the entire 32-year run of original Sharps rifle production - but the modern total wouldn't miss it by much!

Shiloh rifle company