Howdy
Your 2 Cents are duly noted.
I consider myself quite fortunate to own three Merwin Hulbert revolvers.
I also have a copy of Art Phelps' out of print book The Story of Merwin Hulbert & Co. Firearms. The myth of the superiority of the Merwin Hulbert system is largely due to this book.
The Merwin Hulbert revolver was a unique design, owing to the unusual way the barrel and cylinder rotated and pulled forward to unload.
But unlike a S&W Top Break, the revolver had to be closed up to reload it, and it had to be reloaded one cartridge at a time through a loading gate, not much different than a Colt. You simply cannot reload with the revolver opened up, it must be closed and reloaded one round at a time.
The S&W Top Breaks on the other hand could be unloaded and reloaded with the gun still broken open, in my humble opinion a superior system.
The reason the Merwin Hulbert used this system is because S&W owned all the patents for Top Break revolvers at the time. MH had to come up with an alternative design.
Much has been made of the precision required to manufacture the MH mechanism. If you remove the side plate, you will see the lockwork of a MH single action revolver is virtually identical to the lockwork in a S&W single action Top Break. Except the MH parts are actually cruder.
Merwin Hulbert Pocket Army
S&W New Model Number Three
Phlelps also made a big deal about the precision required to make the unique rotating components of the MH mechanism. With all due respect, any well set up 19th Century gun manufacturer could have done this, but MH was the only company that bothered. The myth of the superiority of the MH system is largely due to Art Phelps and his book. Nobody else wrote much about the Merwin Hulberts, and today's gun writers have swallowed everything he said.
Regarding Cowboy Action shooters going nuts over a MH clone, I can tell you that when I show up at a match, although my Merwins attract a lot of attention, nobody is excited enough to try to find one. I only know one other CAS shooter who owns one. If the recent attempt at manufacturing a new MH revolver had been successful, I suspect a lot of shooters would have been disappointed when they discovered it is slower to empty and reload than a S&W Top Break.
The reason the company that was trying to make a new MH failed is they were underfunded. It takes a lot of money to introduce a new product. They were underfunded so they took deposits on orders to try to fund the company. It was not enough money and the effort went belly up. Eventually the deposits were returned when another company took over the project, but there has been no movement to start up again.
Uberti has been making copies of the Colt SAA for many, many years. They amortized the expense of tooling and start up many years ago. That is why they can produce respectable copies of the SAA for reasonable prices. But check the price of an Uberti Cattleman against the price of an Uberti Schofield or Russian some time. The Top Break replicas cost about twice as much.
If Uberti, or any other Italian manufacturer decided to make a replica of the Merwin Hulbert, the price tag would probably be similar to their Top Break replicas.
And as has been said, there really is not a lot of demand.
