Uberti .357 competition Range report

Congrats on your new gun. Sorry that you ran into the problems. I also had the base pin go bad on my brand new Heritage .357 Rough Rider Big Bore, which is also a single action revolver based on the Colt design. I sent it back a couple of times (also had a cylinder chamber issue.) They fixed both problems and the gun works perfect now. BTW, I found that Cowboy .357 loads from Black Hills Ammo were very accurate out of my gun, when other .38 Special cowboy loads weren't so much. I know that "Cowboy load .357" might sound like a contradiction, but they worked well in my gun.

Sorry to hear about your issues. I have 2 El Patron revolvers. A 357 and a 45 Colt. Never a problem. Admittedly neither has a super high round count yet. With Fall upon us I aim to change that though.
Keep us posted.

I like the looks of those grips. In particular the checkering.

I hope they get your revolver back to you soon.

I have an older EMF New Dakota made by Armi San Marco, that has a 2 stage safety base pin that has a tendency of working itself out, but it never made the trigger "feel wonky". Depending on how far it comes out (and it has to be out quite a bit), your cylinder would eventually not rotate fully into lockup.

If your trigger felt "wonky" I would check the trigger springs, and if the screws are tight.

One of the reason your base pin might become "loose" and work its way out, is the cross retaining pin is not holding it in place, so you might want to check that the spring is tight and strong

Glad to hear!

Much better!

My only Uberti experience was with a cattleman 4 3/4” .45 Colt with a case hardened body and brass grip frame. Flawless function, it was a really nicely finished and blued revolver that shot well for me. ( It now resides in far Northern Idaho with a good friend.)

Hopefully that will be the only issue you gave ruth it .

Stay safe.

What is "retractable firing pin"?

I always cut the base pin down, so that when it's in the "safety position", it's actually not blocking the hammer. I carry my Uberti's on my wilderness adventures, and the last thing I want is for the base pin to be in the "safe" position when I need the gun to go off. Anyhow, they seem to lock into the "safe" position more solidly than when it's sticking out in the firing position. I prefer to carry five rounds in the gun, rather than the base pin getting pressed into the "safety position" by accident. I sure couldn't see packing the gun around on "safe", and then having to pull the pin out to fire it. And it looks goofy sticking way out in the fire position. But that's just me.

The retractable firing pin is Ubertis latest safety feature. The firing pin is held forward when the trigger is pulled but is slightly retracted until then. This gives the classic look of the hammer mounted firing pin while providing a degree of safety and gets rid of the need for the 2 position base pin.
FWIW I still carry mine with 5 loaded just for consistency as I have other SAs that require it for safety.

Thanks, that's the first I have heard of that.

The base pin bushing isn't too terribly hard to replace, that should fix the endplay. But I'm wondering how the firing pin hole has a burr that's shaving brass. A lot of dry firing? Sounds like issues at both ends of the cylinder.

Dunno, but I have read here and elsewhere that a Colt type SA is not good to dry fire and results in damage to the firing pin hole. Gotta remember that the Uberti, when the trigger is pulled, acts just like a Colt SA, in that the firing pin is forward, not retracted.

Actually... a poorly fitting safety would be an edge in prolonging the firing pin hole life, as the firing pin would not be protruding!

I only know what others say here, castboolits, sass etc. No firsthand knowledge, only going on the experiences shared by others.

On the other hand.... Colt themselves say DO NOT DRY FIRE.

Therefore, I conclude you know even less than what you agree with from my prior post.

Howdy

I cannot help you with issues regarding the retractable firing pin because I have almost no experience with them.

I can tell you something about burrs being formed around the firing pin hole in the frame.

With almost any Colt or SAA replica, the firing pin actually 'finds it way' through the hole in the frame. The arc described by the firing pin as the hammer falls does not line up completely with the way the hole has been drilled. The hole is cone shaped and drilled perpendicular to the face of the frame, however the firing pin describes an arc as it goes through the hole in the frame. This means the firing pin will normally be rubbing against the upper and lower surfaces of the hole as it flashes through the hole. That is why the firing pin is pinned to the hammer with a little bit of up and down wiggle.



As the firing pin moves as it finds its way through the hole it rubs against the metal of the frame. The steel of the frame is relatively soft, the firing pin is hardened. Depending on how much contact there is between the frame and the firing pin in any particular revolver, the firing pin can displace some of the steel in the frame and raise a burr on the front face of the frame. This is not necessarily related to lots and lots of dry firing, it is related to how much interference there is between the two parts. In the worst cases, a burr can be raised with very little shooting. I once had a used Uberti Cattleman that I had never dry fired. It had such a bad burr raised on the face of the frame that rounds in the cylinder were being scraped very badly and the cylinder got locked up with live ammunition in the cylinder. I had a heck of a time getting the cylinder out of the gun so I could unload it.

These days I only have one Uberti revolver left in my collection. This is a photo of the area around the firing pin hole. I took a long drill bit, long enough to reach completely through the barrel, and wrapped masking tape around the entire bit except for the tip. I inserted the bit down the barrel and very gently BY HAND rotated the bit to create a slight countersink around the hole. This created a void so that when more steel was raised up in a burr, it only filled up the countersink and did not rise above the surface of the frame. This is a photo of the hole after my treatment with the drill bit. Yes, it is a bit rough, but it worked.






All of which is exactly why Colt presses a hardened bushing into the frame. The bushing is hard and prevents a burr from being raised up as the firing pin flashes through the hole.

It happens often.
https://triggershims.com/colt_revolver.php

SAA and clone shims, no brainer

Master Blaster said:

Just curious Driftwood, have you ever had an end shake issue with an SAA?.

This Uberti I have has the cylinder face contacting the rear of the barrel if I point the barrel down.

To me this is as bad as it gets. But my experience is based on Rugers or S&W D A revolvers.

Click to expand...

I am curious if the endshake was there when the revolver was new, or if it happened after the revolver went back for service.

The cylinder certainly should not be rubbing against the rear of the forcing cone, and your photo shows it is doing so rather badly, with the blue wearing off the front of the cylinder.

Endshake is defined as the cylinder being able to slide forward and back along the cylinder pin.

A tiny bit of endshake is almost unavoidable with many revolvers. I have a 2nd Gen Colt that I bought used about 20 years ago. It needed a little bit of smith work when I bought it, and the smith pointed out to me that the cylinder had some endshake. He also told me that endshake tends to get worse after the revolver has been fired many, many times. Probably from the cylinder being able to pound backwards against the frame. I never did anything about the endshake and I have been firing full house Black Powder 45 Colt loads in it for twenty years now. If the endshake has gotten worse, I have not noticed. Of course I did not note down how much play there was 20 years ago, so I have nothing to compare it to today.

The shims sold for endshake are placed over the cylinder pin in front of the bushing on the front of the cylinder. They eliminate the cylinder sliding back and forth and also serve to maximize the barrel/cylinder gap. Let's say the gap was .006 with cylinder shoved all the way forward, and .010 with the cylinder shoved all the way back. That means there is .004 of endshake. Placing two .002 shims over the cylinder pin in front of the bushing will stop the cylinder from sliding back and forth, and leave a .010 b/c gap. A little bit wide, but not the end of the world.

However endshake should not be so bad that the cylinder is rubbing on the rear of the barrel forcing cone as yours is. Do you have some feeler gauges? You can determine how much endshake you have by measuring the b/c gap with the cylinder all the way forward and all the way back.

I have never had occasion to use shims, I think I have some somewhere that I bought for that Colt. Just never used them because it seemed to me that it would be easy to lose them every time I took the cylinder out to clean the gun.

If you read Kuhnhausen's book he says endshake should be zero, but personally I would not sweat .001 or .002 of endshake. Maybe later today I will measure the endshake on that Colt. I will let you know how much it is if I do.

Please remember the bushing does not "set the gap", neither do shims.

Driftwood, I think they are showing shims behind the bushing face in that link I provided. Not sure I like that, will have to ponder it a bit.

Fit of bushing to frame should be as close to zero as possible. Fit of cylinder to bushing the same. But as we know, combined tolerance suggests that .001-.002 you mentioned, especially after firing and the parts settle in.

I have only fit a bushing once.... Made a rotary jig to sidewheel cut it on the surface grinder. It fit. I was anal though, and I'm sure there are some tricks but I have no idea about when fitting them.

I stand corrected. It has been a long time. The bushing is removed, the shims are dropped in, then the bushing is replaced.

Which is probably why I never tried shims with that Colt. The bushing is frozen in place. No amount of persuasion will remove it, I tried years ago.




"Please remember the bushing does not "set the gap", neither do shims."

The combination of everything sets the gap. How far the forcing cone extends into the frame, the length of the frame window where the cylinder sits, the length of the cylinder, the amount of endshake, and the length of the bushing. I may be forgetting something in there.

The point I was trying to make is that none of those things can be changed without adding or subtracting metal somewhere. With a cylinder that exhibits endshake, if shims are added to eliminate the endshake, then the cylinder will sit at the farthest back position it was sitting at before, and the dimension of the gap will have been stabilized.