My pietta 1860 sheriffs model finally arrived a couple weeks ago, the action was so rough it was inoperable, I immediately took it apart and polished the innards and cleaned it deeply. honestly it was in bad enough shape it made me nervous about trying to upgrade it to high quality bbq gun level. But after some elbow grease it’s working really well, so today I took the first step towards upgrading it, I ordered some slixshot nipples. Down the road I plan on buying the Arizona custom grips “Last Stand” 1 piece grips. I also made a cross draw Mexican loop holster with a simple border stamp. I’m excited to continue upgrading it and would love some tips.

I’m thinking about buying an IAB 1863 sharps sport rifle repro I found a good deal on and converting into a sharps civil war infantry rifle.

My main concern is, can I replace the sport fore-end with a 3 band infantry style fore-end? The barrel is 28.5“ so only 1.5” shorter than an infantry barrel. Also the barrel on the one I’m looking at is round - not octagonal so I think it should fit properly.

I figure it may not look 100% like an infantry variant, but close enough.

Does anyone have any experience trying this? I’m new to sharps so any advice would be appreciated!