I was talkin' Uberti's 'nat with a fella at the gun show today....

[BADUNAME30]

He had some Uberti/Cimerons on his table and we got to talkin Uberti vs. Pietta.
His explanation to me was that not only are those two different in 'craftsmanship', but the Uberti's are also different from, (what i thot was importers ),distributer to distributer. ie: Cimeron vs. Taylor.
He went on to explain that these various Uberti distributers have varying 'specs' that they have Uberti follow in building guns specificaly for them.
Are his explanations of this accurate ?
And if so., is this something to take into concideration when buying Uberti's as apposed to just price shopping ?

 

[Oldnamvet]

I have no idea but it seems like that would be a very inefficient way to make a product if you are building the same thing to different specifications.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

not totally, but pretty close.

You can order the $79.99 model with some quality control, the $99.99 model with better quality, the $129.99 model with the best. or even special order a 1,000 pieces to your particular specs. It has been like this with the italian makers for at least 50 years. About 30 years ago, a guy named Garrett took a Sharps rifle to Italy and contracted with Palmetto Firearms to run a few thousand copies. Garrett had some pretty stiff quality clauses in the contract and those that didn't meet his minimum quality were sold off to another importer.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

It isn't really that the guns change dimensions of parts, but for instance if the hammers are stamped out, there will be rough edges, that may need varying degrees of finishing. Or the customer may specify that the parts be smoothed and polished. Perhaps demand a better quality wood for grips.

For instance, I recently purchased a Pietta Remmie from Cabelas. Out of the box, I measured the chamber mouths. All were .449, except one, which was slightly out of round and measured .451 at the widest. Taylors may demand that all the chambers be uniform and might have rejected the one I got from Cabelas. In a production contract, there is often a provision for a permissible deviation in size from part to part in the production run. For instance, the chambers may be required to be within 5 ten-thousandths of an ideal. (when the first 1873 trapdoors were being produced, Government inspectors were to accept any bore diameter between .457 and .468. The latter is huge for a cartridge gun.

 

[Crawdad1]

I know Taylor's inspect and rejects some guns sent to them and that may also be the case with Cimarron Arms but I don't know that for sure.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

His explanation to me was that not only are those two different in 'craftsmanship', but the Uberti's are also different from, (what i thot was importers ),distributer to distributer. ie: Cimeron vs. Taylor.
He went on to explain that these various Uberti distributers have varying 'specs' that they have Uberti follow in building guns specificaly for them.
Are his explanations of this accurate ?

No, this is a commonly held misconception, but it is not true. For instance for a long time a lot of folks thought that some importers specified more highly finished rifles from Uberti. I have been inside enough of them to know that other than some superficial details like different marking, inside they are all of the same quality and all have the same amount of lack of fine finish. For a long time now in the Cowboy Shooting world, the watchword has been buy for the best price you can find, because they are all the same inside. They all roll off the same assembly line.

 

[Olmontanaboy]

I don't beleive it's the case. The Uberti's are a higher quality pistol as far as fit and finish than the Pietta's in my opinion based on the ones I've owned and the many I have examined, with one exception (arbor fit). That is not to say that the Pietta pistols are no good just the Uberti's seem nicer. However that being said, as far as I'm concerned I won't buy another Uberti percussion Colt copy because of a Uberti design flaw affecting most of them (short arbors) their Remington copys don't have this problem. Some may claim this is an easy fix by adding shims to the short arbor but that did not work in my case on the two Uberti Colt copys that I own. The barrel cylinder gap became much two large and would need to have machining done to the frame to adjust it to acceptable specs.
As far as importers being able to specify what quality they want when ordering, I think this is myth. I think they get what comes off the assembly line, good and bad and in between. It's up to the importer to inspect the product and return the lemons to the manufacturer or pass them off to us. I think they (the manufactures) have highly skilled veteran workers and newly trained workers who will get better as they gain more experience, and it's the luck of the draw which pistol you get (seasoned worker or green recruit). It's why I only buy in person and not mail order (I'm picky). I know these percussion cap & ball revolvers are cheaper than modern revolvers and thats fine but I would be willing to pay more and have the gun come out of the box without needing doctored up repairs.

 

[Old Fuff]

It is true that U.S. distributors do dicker with both Uberti and Pietta over prices, and that some go for lowball cost while some others will pay more for additional handwork, finish options, and inspection.

Others sometimes order the basic gun and then have additional work done here.

Both manufacturers do less polishing and fitting of lockwork in brass-framed vs. steel-framed revolvers because the former are intended to be retailed at a lower price point, and more often then not used as decorators.

One time a friend showed me his recently purchased brass-framed 1851 Navy clone, which he had bought for substantially less money then I’d paid for a supposedly better steel-framed version from another maker. He claimed that my gun was better, but not that much better, to justify the difference in cost.

This went on until I pointed out to him that the hole drilled for the pin style front sight went all of the way through the barrel and into the bore…

 

[rmark]

I have a Uberti 1862 .36 police that's fine, my 1851 .36 Navy the barrel contacts the front of the cylinder if the wedge is pushed all of the way into place, binding up the cylinder.

 

[Old Fuff]

The wedge is not suppose to be pushed all of the way in, and if it is the likely consequence will be the cylinder face binding on the barrel. At this point I suspect that a new wedge will be needed.

The "wedge issue" has been much covered in this sub-forum. Use the search feature and key words: Colt wedge.

 

[Noz]

I have sold all of my Uberti's in favor of the Pietta.

If you can drive the wedge in far enough to jam the cylinder you have a classic example of the too short arbor on the Ubertis. It can be fixed but its a pain.