you can find a shooter for $1500
I can buy two new Uberti's for what a scratched up Colt costs, and they shoot just as well but look better. Truly, I wouldn't mind owning a real Colt SAA, but I'd want one from back in the day if I was collecting them, and even if not safe for shooting, imagine what one of those would cost. There was a guy a few months ago at a local gun show had a matched pair of Colt SAA's, new in their presentation case, and with consecutive SN's. Wanted $4K for the pair. For me, these reproduction Uberti's aren't collectible, but they are nice to look at and shoot, for a lot less than "real' Colts or Remingtons.
This is the type used in my Smoke Wagons.
I believe it's the type bangswitch is referring to also
View attachment 1196629
Yes, this is the safety I was talking about. The firing pin floats in the hammer; with hammer down the pin won't put pressure on the primer at all. When you pull the hammer back, there is no safety notch, so the "1st click" is gone, and you go to half cock as usual. Once at full cock, the firing pin is still floating until you put pressure on the trigger and you have to keep pressure on the trigger as the hammer falls to force that little rod inside the hammer against the rear of the firing pin and hold it forward so it will strike the primer. It's a fairly elegant solution that doesn't affect the visual appeal of the gun, and I never had any issues with it working well. I have read that some users have had failures to fire and attribute it to the new safety design. I wanted a true 4-click action and Taylor's has the hammer with a safety notch that is a drop-in fit. You can cut the finger off the trigger, but a new trigger without the finger isn't very expensive and you have to remove the trigger anyway to retrofit the new hammer. The odd thing about this new safety is that Uberti still does not recommend carrying the revolver with 6 rounds (one under the hammer). If that's the case, why bother with this new style safety if it isn't truly drop safe? For holster carry, the old style hammer with the safety notch is sufficient, even though a hard strike against the back of the hammer, or dropping the gun on the hammer, could shear that small notch. I guess it happened enough in the Old West that the cowboys started "loading one, skipping one and loading four" to keep an empty chamber under the hammer. Even John Book (John Wayne) talked about it to Gillem Rogers (Ron Howard) in his last film,
The Shootist.
J.B. Books teaches Gillom a lesson in firearm handling, and why he has lived as long as he has. All rights reserved by Paramount Pictures
www.youtube.com
Most of the firearms used in Western films are Uberti or Pietta reproductions. In any one film there are usually at least three guns for each actor for backups in case of mechanical failures or to speed the filming between takes. That alone would keep those companies in business, but then you have SASS and other cowboy shooting groups, and then there's the Civil War reenactors and their percussion guns. Add to that the world-wide sales to guys like you and me.