I think I speak for Steve as well when I say that my favorite firearms from SHOT Show 2026 weren’t new releases. And even if they were technically new, they were far from new in spirit. What is [perhaps] new is that Chiappa Firearms appears to be collecting some of their reproduction 1800s firearms under the “Stampede Western Replica” category/brand, which would be a much more navigable way to determine which models they sell are faithful repro classics.
For Steve and me it came down to pure mechanical satisfaction and the feel of old school quality and heft. Run the action on that 1887 Lever-Action Shotgun? Oh man. It’s pure steampunk awesomeness with machined steel mechanisms moving simultaneously in every conceivable direction in a blur of color case hardened glory. And like all of the falling block and lever action guns we fondled, it was insanely smooth. Wonderfully, beautifully fit and finished and, despite the complexity of some of these mechanisms, these guns ran smooth as greased glass.
On the Little Sharps Rifle the set trigger was set to “just think about it,” whereas the 1874 Sharps Down Under Rifle had its set trigger adjusted heavy enough that we could tell our finger contacted it before it fired. That bad boy has a sewer pipe diameter, 34-inch-long, octagonal barrel and tips the scales at 12.3 to 15 pounds, 20 pounds of which is way out in front of your support hand because all 32 pounds of the rifle’s weight is the barrel and the dang gun is longer than Steve or Dan is tall.
The Spencer Carbine with the magazine tube in the butt stock? Fuhgeddaboudit. They don’t make ’em like they used to . . . except when they do. Well, with some modern CNC machining.
It’s a travesty that zero of Chiappa’s Stampede Western Replica guns live in my safe, but I intend to fix that. In the meantime they’ll live in my dreams rent free.