Help me out with Pietta, Uberti and their re-branders, please

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hawg said:
My Uberti/Cimarron has a firing pin block but it has four clicks. It was made in 2000. You can see the external part just under the firing pin.
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That's different from the current retractable firing pin. Either system can be replaced with a plain hammer, something I did with mine for the sake of authenticity. At least until a couple of years ago, VTI still had the older Uberti parts. (The other thing I replaced was the "Swiss safety" base pin.)
 
35 Whelen said:
There is a lot of confusion on this subject. When the retracting firing pin came out a few years ago, I called Cimarron and asked them if Uberti had completely done away with the 4-click models. The Cimarron employee told me they had, but Cimarron still offered a 4-click model in their black powder frame. The kicker was that these were made by Pietta, not Uberti. That was several years ago and things could've changed.

35W
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The El Malo 2 I posted above was unveiled at the 2019 shotshow. 4 click, fixed firing pin, no lawyer gobbledygook safety crap. It is a Pietta. I dont know what frame its built on.
 
Rubone said:
My point was is that they are there all the time and not unobtanium as the OP said. And as for your election year comment....
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I have to admit, I didn't count GB as a source, since I really doubt I'll ever use it to buy a gun.

All the local shops, as well as the distributor's they use (like Davidson's) have 0 Vaqueros, Blackhawks or Single-Sixes. The only Ruger SA's available are Wranglers.

Larry
 
ontarget said:
I have 3 Uberti revolvers that I am very fond of.
4.75 in 45 Colt. EL PATRON
3.5 in Birdshead 45 Colt
5.5 in 357. EL PATRON
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OnTarget:
Do you feel the El Patron models were enhanced enough to support their additional cost ? In my opinion, the tweaks
Uberti indicate they do to ElPatrones should be part of the initial build,
Not $100+ more option ?
Thanks,
Nero ?
 
Rubone said:
My point was is that they are there all the time and not unobtanium as the OP said. And as for your election year comment....
Click to expand...

I just get tired of the hyperbole when someone is trying to make a point. Yeah, they're out there if you want to purchase a firearm that you can't hold in your hand with you-bought-it-it's-yours-no-returns-you-own-it sales. LGS not so much. Mostly they know the dogs and don't deal in that garbage. Unsatisfied customers isn't a good thing in the age of the internet.
 
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NeroM said:
OnTarget:
Do you feel the El Patron models were enhanced enough to support their additional cost ? In my opinion, the tweaks
Uberti indicate they do to ElPatrones should be part of the initial build,
Not $100+ more option ?
Thanks,
Nero ?
Click to expand...

Honestly my Birdshead .45 is very smooth.
I have not fired a standard Cattlemen or the Cattlemen II so I can't compare to the El Patron. All of the Cattlemen I have seen in the flesh have been matte finished. All 3 of mine have very nice blueing and gorgeous CCH frames, so there is a difference in the finish, and that pushes the price up too.
If I ever see a nice Cattlemen II in .45 for a good price I will grab it.
 
Well, I've ordered a Pietta 1873. I'm anxiously awaiting its shipment to my FFL, and would welcome any info on it from those with experience.

Larry
 
DT Guy said:
I have to admit, I didn't count GB as a source, since I really doubt I'll ever use it to buy a gun.

All the local shops, as well as the distributor's they use (like Davidson's) have 0 Vaqueros, Blackhawks or Single-Sixes. The only Ruger SA's available are Wranglers.

Larry
Click to expand...

Maybe call around to some other shops. My LGS has plenty of Ruger SA's as well as a few Uberti's.
 
35 Whelen said:
If you're comparing a Ruger NV to Uberti produced revolvers, the NV's are not stronger at all. That's gunshop talk and internet assumption.

As to the subject of coil springs, I ran across this awhile back on one of the Smith & Wesson forums-

As an engineering professor - teaching mechanical engineering design - if the two types of springs are designed properly, there should be no difference in their reliability. Whether that is actually done will determine which will fail first, if either.

Guess that's why S&W is still using them in so many of their revolvers.

35W
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While I would agree with the premise, I believe the "quality" aspect isn't perfect in our Italian offerings concerning the flat springs. They tend to be too thick, too wide, and/or too short. That generally means they are too strong for the task and have to move too far during the task. This is why they tend to fail so frequently (Sept fer Hawg !!! Lol ). Quite often revolvers show up with broken springs or have been replaced with wire versions of the same thing. The wire version is really just a modern iteration of the flats and though they may be somewhat more forgiving, do break and a bigger down side is a loss of action "feel" and "snappy" sound clues that the flats give you. In other words, a "mushier" feel and a muffled sound that would possibly indicate a cracked spring if it were a flat spring.

Enter the coil-torsion spring and compression springs used in the 3screw Ruger action. I would say these are the perfect type of spring for the action in a S.A. revolver. The parts movement can't "over extend" or stress the springs capability like they do with the flats, even though the trigger, bolt and hand have rather minimum movement!! Another plus using individual springs (rather than the combo spring) is a more precise tension setting for the trigger and bolt. So, you end up with lazy springs that won't be "over worked" but do the job needed leaving the real "heavy work" for the remaining flat spring - the main spring. That spring IS the perfect force for the intended job!!
The flat spring is perfect for moving heavy payloads fast! Coils don't like to move fast.

That's just been my experience, to my knowledge, no coil-torsions have broken to date.

Mike
 
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45 Dragoon said:
While I would agree with the premise, I believe the "quality" aspect isn't perfect in our Italian offerings concerning the flat springs. They tend to be too thick, too wide, and/or too short. That generally means they are too strong for the task and have to move too far during the task. This is why they tend to fail so frequently (Sept fer Hawg !!! Lol ). Quite often revolvers show up with broken springs or have been replaced with wire versions of the same thing. The wire version is really just a modern iteration of the flats and though they may be somewhat more forgiving, do break and a bigger down side is a loss of action "feel" and "snappy" sound clues that the flats give you. In other words, a "mushier" feel and a muffled sound that would possibly indicate a cracked spring if it were a flat spring.

Enter the coil-torsion spring and compression springs used in the 3screw Ruger action. I would say these are the perfect type of spring for the action in a S.A. revolver. The parts movement can't "over extend" or stress the springs capability like they do with the flats, even though the trigger, bolt and hand have rather minimum movement!! Another plus using individual springs (rather than the combo spring) is a more precise tension setting for the trigger and bolt. So, you end up with lazy springs that won't be "over worked" but do the job needed leaving the real "heavy work" for the remaining flat spring - the main spring. That spring IS the perfect force for the intended job!!
The flat spring is perfect for moving heavy payloads fast! Coils don't like to move fast.

That's just been my experience, to my knowledge, no coil-torsions have broken to date.

Mike
Click to expand...

So it sounds like you have a lot of experience with broken springs in Italian revolvers. Care to elaborate? I ask because I've owned over a dozen Uberti's/Cimarron's (still own a half dozen of them) and have gone through over a case (5000) of large pistol primers and close to that many small pistol primers, all in Italian revolvers. I think I remember one broken bolt trigger spring on one of these revolvers that I had bought used. Obviously our experiences do not parallel.

Thanks,
35W
 
Ha!!! Well after working on hundreds of cap guns, yes . . . I've seen a number of broken springs. Lots of wire replacements (and broken wire replacements). Collapsed and corroded coil compression springs (ROA's).
It took quite a while but I designed my own coil-torsion spring action and replacements for Colt S.A's, Remington and Ruger platforms. Now about 99% of my customers want the coil conversions and as I posted above, I've not heard of any broken torsion springs.

Mike
 
DT Guy said:
Well, I've ordered a Pietta 1873. I'm anxiously awaiting its shipment to my FFL, and would welcome any info on it from those with experience.

Larry
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I like the Pietta revolvers. We are seeing them taking market share from Uberti in cowboy action circles due to concerns, whether justified or not, about the Cattleman 2 system.

SASS rules require revolvers to be loaded with five rounds so a transfer bar or other passive safety is not an advantage.

For a SA revolver to carry fully loaded I would choose a Ruger.

A Colt style SA should get the “cowboy load”: Hammer to halfcock, open the gate, load one chamber, skip one, load four, close the gate, haul the hammer to full cock and lower it to rest.

Never lower the hammer from the “safety” notch or from halfcock. Always cock it fully, then lower to rest.
 
I think the concern over broken springs is valid but often overstated, particularly by those just reading or hearing about it and repeating it. I got my first leaf sprung Colt-style action (Uberti) at age 12, in 1986. Most the forum regulars know that traditional single actions are what I obsess about the most. I don't keep a round count but for the last 36yrs, I've shot them a lot. In that time, I only remember two broken springs. One was the trigger/bolt spring of my 3rd model Dragoon and it happened right out of the box. The other was a Colt Frontier Scout that did not even belong to me. It belonged to my best friend and had A LOT of miles on it, to the point of wearing off the nickel in several places. It snapped the hand spring. Generally speaking, I swap the springs in my SAA type guns and then forget about them. Domestic USFA's will then feel like they've been professionally tuned and the newer Uberti guns are usually smooth enough to work just fine with new springs.
 
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