The "stainless Pietta" Colt is probably not actually stainless. The Remingtons are stainless. The Colt Pietta's that are "in the white" are (as the info came from Pietta thru a forum member at anothewr site) actually a specially hardened steel that is more rust resistant. Hardened steel. That makes for a better gun I think.
When comparing Uberti and Pietta the mechanical attributes have to be considered.(unless the guns "jest fer lookin at) The Guns of Pietta were the last I saw having chambers much closer to the diameter of the barrel grooves. More the way a gun should be. Uberti has in the past had chambers really undersized compared to the groove diameter of the barrels. I've guns that were made by Uberti that had chambers as much as .013 inch. undersized compared to the barrel grooves. Pietta has the guns more in the area of the chambers .003-.005 undersized. The closer the chamber size of a cap&baller is to the barrel groove diameter the more consistantly accurate they shoot. The Uberti's may have been improved upon in that area of the "undersized chambers' recently. I need to buy an up to dateUbereti to examine. Since the Bennelli Family bought Uberti and put it in the Beretta shop next door there have been changes made. I've noticed with some parts I've ordered to do jobs that Uberti has made improvements in the parts I was sent. People with the new Uberti's can check the specs in things like the hand hole in the hammers,the hammers main screw specs compared to the hammers hole, timing where as the action locks up nice at the point the trigger hits full cock, alignment of the chambers to the barrel grooves ect.ect.ect.
All the cap&ballers are a crap shoot to buy. May be good,may be sloopy. That's the way they come to the US in a "range" of quality control. The retailers or importers buy in the "range". Pay more for a higher grade or get a better deal for accepting some of the lesser guns with blems and defects.
One thing I know for sure. Pietta's are improved immensely since they put in all the new CNC machines. That takes us back to mechanics.
Pietta has a trait in the Colts I simply love. The arbor is in the barrel hole snug with less slop. The arbor bottoms out in the hole when the bottom lug of the barrel meets or comes within a .001 or .002 of the frame where the pins are. That makes for a much better mechanical fit to the gun. I applaud Pietta for that since it would be difficult to machine that close a tolerance into so many mass produced guns. The mechanicas of that trait is the way the guns should be built. The opposite wouild be the Ubert's I've worked on and own. The arbor hole is much too sloppy of an overly large fit to the size of the arbors. The arbor doesn't bottom put in the barrels hole. The result is the pinched cylinder that can be immobilized by putting the wedge in a little too much. It shouldn't be needed to use a feeler gauge or whatever to reassemble the barrel to a Colt cap&baller to make sure the cylinder gap isn't too small. The wedge should go in till it stops solid and the gap and other parts should be right. That's proper mechanics and tolerances. Because of the better mechanics to the Pietta Colts I'll take one of them over a Uberti if Pietta offers the model I want. The last several Pietta I bought were timed and constructed very well.
I have to conclude that Pietta has a better gun mechnically(Colts mostly) as far as I've seen. I have to be fair and say that I haven't examined one of the newer Uberti's that are coming out now. They are said to have been improved and I've seen the improvements in a few "parts" I've bought.
I've knowledge that Uberti is changing some things in an effort to minimize the number of different parts made for the models they make. They are said to be trying to put the same parts in as many different models as they can so they have to make less types of the same parts. You know, like they already do in like parts in the 1851's and the 1860's and the Open Tops ect.ect. The lists that VTI GunParts puts up on their site can be compared to see the like parts that are in differnt models.
One thing is for sure.....both Uberti and Pietta have their dang cylinder steel way too soft. The bolts can damage the cylinders after the very first few workings of the actions. When I buy or have a gun to fix for someone, the first thing I do before working the action is to loosen the trigger/bolt spring to minimize the deformation they cause around and "in" the cylinder notches. I think one improvement that Uberti and Pietta can both make is to use better steel in the cylinders more lke the steel they use in the cartridge guns they make. Harder. It's a disgrace to make such nice cap&ballers as both Pietta and Uberti do and make them with cylinder steel akin to jello. If they don't want to use a different steel than they should at least try to harden it some. Well, thats my two cents worth.
