Uberti Cattleman revolvers with crater around firing pin hole.

Bibbyman said:

Driftwood, I found a picture of the recoil shield of a Merwin Hulbert that you posted on the topic of "Most authentic WAA clone?" that shows a crater around the firing pin hole very much the same as the crater on my Uberti Cattleman. Do you know what caused the crater and was there a repair?

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That gun was made in the early 1880s. Even though I used the word 'cratering' it really is just a slight depression around part of the firing pin hole. That depression was there when I bought the gun a few years ago. Made no doubt by the impact of primers backing out before being reseated by recoil over the years. All primers back out when they are fired, and then they are reseated as the case slams into the recoil shield. The old steel used to make that gun was probably relatively soft by modern standards. No hardened insert, despite Merwin Hulbert's undeserved reputation as being the finest revolvers made in the 19th Century. No repair has been done, the gun does not get fired much, only with Black Powder loads when it does. Primers do flow into the depression slightly, but not enough to impair the function of the gun.

Bibbyman said:

Thanks,

Your comment on the Merwin Hulbert being made of soft metal relates to the comments made by the first gunsmith I aproched to install a Pietta firing pin bushing. He refused to work on Uberti because the were made of soft metal. The implication was that they were not worth the effort to repair.

Ironically, the second gunsmith begged out of installing a bushing because he'd have to buy a special carbide cutter because the Uberti frames were too hard to cut with standard mill bits.

My Googe research has turned up a lot of conflicting "facts" regarding the hardness or softness or case hardening of the Uberti frames. Many state that the color case is just color and no case hardening.

Uberti makes a big deal of their frames being forged rather than cast. But forged of what metal?

I've deburred the insides of many Uberti Cattleman revolvers and I'd say they are soft rather than hard.

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Uberti uses a hot chemical dip to 'case harden' their revolver frames. Not true bone case hardening in the traditional sense, but it does impart some extra surface hardness. Not the same as the chemical wash that Ruger was using for the Vaquero when it first came out. Uberti frames are forged, not cast, although some of their internal parts are cast. I can clearly see a parting line on the hammer of the one Cattlemen I still own.

There is a video on Youtube that shows the processes Uberti uses to make their single action revolvers, but I hesitate to refer to it because it is full of misstatements and inaccuracies. But it does clearly show a forged frame prior to final machining, and shows the frames being dipped into the hot chemical bath. Corresponding over the years with several gunsmiths, they have reported there is a bit of surface hardness on an Uberti hammer and trigger, but it does not take much to cut through it and get down to the softer metal underneath. Specifically what alloy Uberti uses for their frames, I have no idea, and I doubt they would tell you, that is proprietary information. But I have no doubt it is a modern carbon steel of some sort.

I have no idea what the Rockwell hardness is of a modern Uberti frame, and I have no idea of what the Rockwell hardness is of that old Merwin Hulbert. I will tell you that when I did that minor surgery to that Uberti frame a long time ago, the bit was a standard high speed drill bit, not carbide. Seeing as the MH was made in the 1880s, I suspect the steel it is made from is softer than a modern Uberti, but I have no specific information to back that up.

Driftwood, that was a master-stroke of description! My compliments.

Here's a little food for thought. A couple years ago I bought what was THE filthiest single action revolver (.357 Mag, 4") I have ever handled! I knew next to nothing about it other than it looked like it had possibilities and it was "inexpensive" shall we say... and my local gun shop and I get along really well. It followed me home. Long story short, I cleaned that baby up and underneath all the grime was a pristine Pietta with a nearly perfect finish and a gorgeous case-hardened frame. So far, so good.

Since I'm lucky enough to have a place to shoot handguns at home, I grabbed some .357 target rounds and went outside for a test. What I had, was, "failure to rotate"... Similar to "failure to communicate", but I don't look a lot like Paul Newman or Cool Hand Luke.

Skip forward - I found the same, very slight, cratering around the firing pin hole that you guys are talking about. It was interfering with the cases and not letting them rotate freely. The only difference is, this Pietta DOES have a steel insert. It must not be real hard, but it's definitely there. I just grabbed the revolver out of the safe and verified it. At the time, I dressed the raised area down very carefully and it has been good ever since. I don't shoot it a lot however, and I pretty much never dry fire my weapons.

Good luck with the repair(s). After reading all of this, that firing pin hole will be something I always check. (I own a S&W Combat Masterpiece purchased new by my dad in 1955 (for $50 even!), and it has been dry fired thousands upon thousands of times. Of course there's a recoil plate in there, but there is not the slightest hint of any raised edge. I just checked it out. Thanks everyone!)

Skeeter Skelton reported burring of firing pin holes in bushingless Ubertis 40 years ago. He recommended not dry firing them.

I learned a long while ago that things like that bushing cost a lot to add and if it was not needed they would have not burdened themselves with the added cost and time required to add such items in the first place. It is a quality for price ratio that the customer is willing to live with that determines features IMHO.

Did I mention I am glad to see you used a nice old Grain of Wheat penny, and not one of those crummy modern ones?

The wheat pennies went away in 1959, replaced by the pennies with the Lincoln Memorial on the reverse side. I remember it well, because I was collecting pennies in those days. Wish I still had my collection, but that is another story for another day.

Just did a search and the metal used to make pennies is quite interesting. From 1793 until 1857 they were pure copper.

From 1856 to 1864 they were 88% copper, 12% nickel.

From 1864 until 1942 they were 95% copper, 5% tin and zinc.

In 1943, because of the war time need for copper, most of the pennies made were zinc coated steel. It gets more interesting than that, but that's all we need to say here.

From 1944 until 1946 they were 95% copper and 5% zinc, but get this, some of them had spent brass shell cases mixed into the alloy.

1962 - 1981, they were actually made from brass, (95% copper, 5% zinc).

In 1982, because of the rise in cost of copper, the government started trying different alloys. The cost of copper had risen to about 1 cent per penny and it did not make economic sense to continue making pennies with a high copper content. So ever since 1982, pennies have been made from zinc with a plating consisting of 97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper.

The government has been trying to eliminate pennies for years, because they cost more to make than they are worth, but so far the public has prevented that from happening.

An interesting side note is the Pennies for Old Ironsides campaign of the 1920s and 1930s.

https://www.navyhistory.org/2012/08/pennies-for-old-ironsides/

Today The U.S.S. Constitution is still on view at the old Boston Navy Yard, I have been on board twice. About twenty years ago she needed new masts, the old ones were rotted and unsafe. Somebody found some old timbers in storage at the Navy Yard and new masts were made. Old Ironsides is the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat. Every year she gets taken out into Boston Harbor and turned around so she will weather evenly on both sides while at her dock. She sailed under her own power, very carefully because she is priceless, in 1997 to commemorator her 200th birthday, and again in 2012 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of her most famous battle when she defeated the British ship H.M.S. Guerriere. This battle was when she gained her nickname Old Ironsides as the British cannonballs bounced off her oak sides.

Just thought I would add that in.

Bibbyman said:

We picked up our Uberti Cattleman Smokewagons from Ahlmans gun shop

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I have often heard good things about Ahlman's.

So how did they repair them?

Very often firing pin bushings are intended to be a permanent assembly, so much so that some parts diagrams don't even show them as a separate part. (WWII M1911A1 pistols have a screwed-in bushing installed in the slide for the same reason; it is rarely mentioned in discussions o that pistol. Today, most 1911 type pistols have hardened slides, making the hardened bushings unnecessary.)

But that hole looks too shallow for a screwed-in bushing. I wonder if the maker simply cut a groove and soldered/glued in a simple flat ring of hardened steel; it would serve the same purpose as long as it stayed in place, and probably would not be shown on any parts diagram since it was never supposed to be removed or replaced.

Jim.

P.S. If the above is correct, the "nick" in the frame at 1 o'clock is probably from an early owner attempt to keep the "bushing" in place when it started to come loose.

JEK

I seriously doubt that pierced primers would cause that condition, no matter what anyone says. The repair is a very nice job and well done, but of course very risky for other than an expert.

Jim

I have a Uberti Cattleman and mine has a bushing.. It was loose and I had it testacked as I stated earlier in this post.. To say they don’t is misleading.. perhaps different years were manufactured differently.

Bibbyman said:

I have some notion that the larger frame 44 Magnum and possibly the stainless may have bushings. I have a Cattleman dating back to mid-70s that does not. We have 10 Uberti Cattleman dating from 2008 through 2017 that do not have a bushing.

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Interesting?..Mine is 357 caliber..Well who knows..

Well .. Here it goes