Quick Range report, Cimarron Pietta 45 Colt.

[Peter M. Eick]

I recently picked up a Cimarron Pietta 45 Colt 4 3/4 SA revolver and was surprised it was a Pietta and not an Uberti. After being surprised about it, I bit the bullet and decided I was committed since it was a custom order so off to the range.

Initially the trigger was a bit rough and the whole gun seemed to be sort of just rough and stiff. My first outing I put 350 rounds of 200 grn Trailboss reloads down it and was pleasantly pleased. First the action has smoothed up a bunch. The trigger pull has dropped from over 5 lbs down to just under 3 lbs. I am not sure why but it seems to have stabilized at that weight. It certainly was disconcerting to go through as it just kept getting lighter and lighter. The action smoothed up a ton. Really easy to drop in shells and you can actually just turn the cylinder and shake out the spent cases. I only occasionally need to use the ejector rod now.

Accuracy is good but I am hitting low left by about 4" low and 1" left. I see that the gun needs to be held very consistently for best accuracy. Much more unforgiving than most of my revolvers. I am not sure why but I can see it will require a bit of training on my part. I have not really found the perfect hold.

45 colt is more power than I expected. Coming from a 357/38 background, I was expecting more of a rap than a push. Shooting the 45 colt is much more about the push and maintaining follow through.

All in all I am actually pleased. I went from being perturbed about getting a Pietta when I expected an Uberti to now being glad I have it. I am happy with the gun and am looking forward to trying 250 grn bullets with it. I expect that with 250's and a bit more powder (Unique over Trailboss) I can get the point of aim closer.

Hopefully I can get out and shoot tomorrow. Really rainy here today, but since we are in a big drought I can't complain. When you are 25" below normal rainfall, a 1.5" rain is a blessing.

 

[mashaffer]

Sounds like it worked out OK. Keep us posted as you break her in.

mike

 

[BCRider]

Glad you like it. From the folks over on the Black Powder forum it seems like Pietta and Uberti are all but even in terms of quality and finish these days. In the past it used to clearly be Uberti on top. But in recent years Pietta has really stepped up their game.

Like you I've been having a tough time at coming to terms with how to hold and shoot single actions. A few things I've learned are common to any gun and special to single actions.

200 gn loads will generally have a higher muzzle speed. As such they get out of the barrel sooner and thus will tend to hit lower than your POA. A shift to the heavier "classical" weight of bullets for .45Colt loads will bring the POI up closer to the POA. I also found that if you're shooting two handed vs one handed that this makes a HUGE difference in the POI. The two handed style really holds the gun down more and causes a definete low hit.

The one inch to the left is likely just you needing to hold with the wrist twisted a little more one way or the other. Or it could even be a small side load on the trigger.

My own Pietta 73 clone shot very low as well when new. I "blame" it on their going either with a very faithful copy of the original black powder sight height or with purposely making it a little taller so that the owner can file it back down to suit their preffered loading and shooting style.

Either way we can count our blessings that it's taller than needed. It's far easier to fix "too tall" with a file than to find a metal stretcher to fix "too short"

For my own part I've filed down the sights in a couple of steps with lots of shooting in between. I've settled on one handed "duelist" style shooting because when did you ever see Clint or John or any other cowboy movie hero shoot with a two handed grip? Along the way I've been altering how high up on the neck of the plowshare grips I'm holding. All of this has caused some fairly major variations in how well I was able to shoot. I've since moved my grip back down from very high to holding with the web of my hand crossing over the back strap just below where the two side flares of the upper rear frame come in and meet the backstrap portion. With a neutral hold with my thumb and forefinger being about at the same height I'm getting target hits that are tending to center just a hair to the right of center. Which is one HECK of an improvement as holding high on the backstrap tended to push things strongly to the left.

Now all of this certainly tends to run counter to all the reports I've read about how the old colt style plowshare grips are "natural pointers". I've not had this much trouble coming to terms with any other hand grip on any handgun. All I can assume is that by good luck these folks got it right the first time. Something that I clearly missed.

 

[Peter M. Eick]

Thanks for the info. I am sure I am "sideloading" the trigger. I was not expecting it to be slightly off center so I was tending to push it to the left slightly when I fired it. Probably that is the root of my problem.

I was suspecting that the 200 grn loads were the issue. I had to guess with the reloads so I chose the cheaper and lighter bullet over the classic 250 grn ones. I will be ordering more 250's soon.

I find the gun a lot of fun to shoot. I will give you guys your due in knowing what is fun to play with. I kind of regret waiting all of this time to get one. It is really a "hoot"!

 

[Quoheleth]

I have a Uberti Hombre - sounds similar to yours. I also shoot mine low, about 4", but a nice tight group. I am using MBC's Cowboy #1 (250gr LRN) over 8gr Unique. No chrono, but manuals say velocity should be high 700s/low 800s fps.

Might be a gun issue. FWIW, if I let the gun "roll up" under recoil, it shoots POI=POA at about 10 yards. When I try to wrassle it down and restrain the roll, it shoots low. I'm going to shoot mine some more before fiddling and filing any front sight, though. I've got a buddy who's a serious SA shooter. Going to get him to try it, too.

Great gun. Enjoy it!

Q

 

[sw282]

amen

 

[Hondo 60]

My Uberti absolutely LOVES MBC Cowboy #4 (200 gr RNFP)
with 10.5 gr of AA#5.
(it leaves a bit of unburnt powder so I may try to up it to 11.0)
My chrono says ~850 fps or so

Today I tried some Berry's 185 SWC (I know, that's a weird looking round)
Shot very well - nice groups, dead center

As far as holding it, just find a comfortable grip & be consistent.
For me it works out that I hold it a bit low with my pinkie under the stocks.

Just my 2¢ YMMV