New old 1860

Some people have said that older Uberti revolvers could be a hit and miss proposition but mine are all from the 70’s and one from the 60’s and I have to say I’m satisfied with all of them. Great fit and finsh (although some don’t have a lot of finish left) Actions are smooth and well timed. And they’re accurate with full power loads. I fired this group benched at 20 yards from a new to me sheriff’s model 1860 yesterday morning. I was just chronographing the load, 35 grains of Swiss 3f under a .457 round ball so I wasn’t paying much attention to size of the group until the fourth shot went home. Point of aim was the red dot. And the load averages 985fps.

I’ll get it sighted in a bit better and run it as is...

Nothing gets by you kid! I can’t shoot nearly that well every time, or with every gun. My eyes are not what they once were. This one is very good and may replace my original Navy Arms Sheriff’s model as a daily user. All Uberti’s, which are exceedingly rare as factory bob jobs. I’ll post a few pictures when I get a minute to do it. Meanwhile, the center pistol here is my almost 60 year old Navy Arms Sheriff.

1KPerDay said:

Looks like it works! Are those factory front sights?

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The sights on the Navy are factory. Both the sheriff and army’s front sights are replacements. The Sheriff’s model is a sight from eBay and the fluted army wears a front sight from a 1871 open top uberti. Holding 6 o’clock on a 5.5” bullseye target it hits dead center at 25 yards. Well that’s what it’s supposed to do, sometimes it does, and sometimes it hits elsewhere.

I was using lube discs, I haven’t used the samples you sent but I need to get that Navy out and take her for a spin... I’m so used to the Army grip that the Navy grip and the saa grips just feel foreign to me.

Here’s the pistol I was referring to in the first post, and a few others. All are Uberti or Colt finished Uberti forgings. I like them all just fine except the 2nd gen Army, it’s previous owner got carried away re-cutting the forcing cone and now it has end shake of .020”. Enough to make ignition a hit and miss proposition. These are EDC so that’s not going to work. The third pic shows how I like my rear sight. That gun is very accurate.

TheOutlawKid said:

Very nice! I like the rear site too...does it help give you a better site picture? And did you customize it yourself?

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Lee Shaver did that rear sight. He also cut the barrel, crowned it, recut the forcing cone, did an action job and reamed the chambers to .454. I used a smaller square file cut on my other guns and their sight picture is akin to a modern pistol. But this one looks much like an express sight on a rifle and it’s grown on me to the point where Im going t do a couple others in similar fashion.

The Uberti Sheriffs came that way, both we’re sold by Navy Arms, the Colt is a second gen
Butterfield commemorative one of 500. And yes 5.5” barrels. I’m tempted to cut the fluted Uberti to 6”. I saw one once and got to shoot it a little. It was very nice.

TheOutlawKid said:

Yes! For some reason a 6 inch barrel is, in my opinion, the best barrel size. Even though its only half an inch larger than a "sheriff" model gun...it makes the world of difference in appearance and handling it. Im wanting to cut down two of my 1851 navies 7.5 inch barrels down to 6 inches. And i too am a firm believer in having the chambers reamed to over groove diameter as i have personally seen the difference in accuracy.

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This is a “normal” rear sight on my pistols. I have a set of jewelers files and a hacksaw to make one like this it’s very fine so I sort out the windage before cutting the notch. The Shaver sight picture is much quicker in use and doesn’t give up much if anything in accuracy.