Mitchell Arms... ubert?

[Kitchen_Duty]

The title should say uberti btw I can't edit that...

So I am trying to find out who actually made my gun and what it is actually worth. I have a mitchell arms Inc 45 long colt SAA. It doesn't have a serial number that I see except: Cat 1815 on the left side trigger guard. It does have Uberti on the bottom of the barrel: A. Uberti-Italy. Oh and the brilliant man before me decided to clean some of the rust off the barrel by using CLR and promptly stripped all of the bluing off the the gun :banghead: and it still has a little crown rust on the front of the barrel. Ok, so here are some pics and any requests I can grant for better pics of different angles.

 

[Markbo]

Mitchell Arms was an importer. Uberti is a manufacturer. Uberti made it, Mitchell imported it for sale in the U.S.

As long as the bluing is gone, you might want to tear it down, polish it to perfect and either try your hand at hot bluing or have it blued. That brass grip can easily shine up really bright!

 

[Hawk]

You could just wax 'er up and run "as is".

If everything runs well, then you might want to try bluing the thing - all blue 1873-pattern stuff can look pretty nice.

Older Ubertis don't generally bring enough to make a professional refurbish worthwhile but they can still be great fun.

 

[DMZ]

I agree. I like that very well worn and heavily used look.

 

[Jim Watson]

I had a Mitchell by Uberti once. Cimarron says they get hand picked guns from Uberti. If so, my Mitchell was one of the leftovers. It came as a .45 Colt - .45 ACP convertible but the ACP cylinder would not lock up reliably. So I traded off the gun with the Colt cylinder only and eventually sold the ACP cylinder to another guy with a Mitchell. It works fine in his.

 

[Markbo]

Hmmmmm.... interesting idea... give it a good coating of car wax to protect all the metal from rust. But the cleaning solutions would take the wax right off. Hmmmmm... I wonder what else you could use that would not come off as easily... maybe just a rust protectant like EEZOX or one of the others that leaves a kind of waxy finish?

 

[Hawk]

I use Renaissance wax and just re-apply after cleaning.

It might be my imagination but it seems crud doesn't stick as much to the waxed surfaces (including the cylinder front), the clean-up goes faster so re-waxing doesn't add anything to the chore.

I've only tried it on a couple SAA-pattern things that I wanted to see if I could keep looking decent longer than is my norm (not long at all) but I'd bet it'd do the job on that "patina" Uberti.

I had an old Italian (I'm guessing well older than the Mitchell) and it had been made out of some miracle alloy that could actually manifest characteristics of being both soft and brittle at the same time. Hence, my suggestion that it be wrung out before investing any real time or money in it. Probably an unwarranted concern on my part.

 

[Markbo]

and it had been made out of some miracle alloy that could actually manifest characteristics of being both soft and brittle at the same time

Now THAT is a drag, right there!

 

[Kitchen_Duty]

Thank you ladies and gentlemen for your knowledge, Yeah I was thinking of trying some cold blue myself. Or the alternative was to trade this one for one in 357 because it is way cheaper to reload.