1866 versus 1873

Yep...Small world...

I am happy that someone got it who would rally use it and appreciate it.

As I said previously, I had about decided not to buy it because of the various aspects of the rifle. (Wrong caliber for me, condition and price, which actually turned out not to be a factor.)

I am also happy to learn that the owner of the shop has figured out how to reach a larger market. He is a decent guy and deserves to be successful.
 
According to the few gunsmiths I know who are initiates of repairung and tuning cowboy guns here in Germany they advise:
# over the years Uberti changed both their Win 66 and 73 significantly. This implies no more spares might be available for earlier production rifles or carbines. The 66 was made from as early as 1963 if memory serves.
# due to this situation these smiths refuse to tune or repair Uberti lever guns with a prefix before "W" in front of the serial number because modern made parts will not interchange.
 
Good, Wolf

I don't know the age of that rifle, but I did handle it and the action is relatively tight. By that I mean appears to be in good condition and appears (to me) to have been used little.

It is a nice rifle. I think JBar will be happy with it. He got it for what I consider to be a good price.
 
There are some older Uberti rifles circulating that don't match up to the recent imports. A friend has an early '66 that he cannot upgrade. I passed up a .38 caliber 1866 carbine because it was an early import. Not cheap either!
 
Doc Hoy, you might kick yourself after you hear this...

... I picked the rifle up from my FFL holder today and am very pleased. In addition to the Grabber style front sight bead and reinforced ladle tab that were evident in the auction pics, it has also had the original lever springs lightened and polished, and a short stroke kit installed. There was an extra threaded hole in the lower tang that had me baffled, because it's obviously some user modification as it goes through the Uberti/Italy stamping, so I removed the butt stock to maybe get an idea and found it has also been fitted with a PGW coil mainspring conversion. Still no explanation for the extra hole though. The internals are very clean and the action has very little wear.

So, $625, shipped, $25 txfer fee and it's already all tricked out with lightened & polished springs, leather lever wrap, Grabber front sight ($30), PGW short stroke, gen 3 I think ($160 for the parts kit), and a PGW coil mainspring conversion ($150 for the parts kit).

:)
 
Congrats jBar

I do envy you picking up the rifle for that price.

I think probly the reason why he was not willing to talk much about the rifle when I was in there for the last time is because he knew it was already sold to you.

The other thing is that I am not enough of a shooter to truly appreciate the modifications. It is good that the rifle went to someone who would appreciate it for what it is.

Merry Christmas.
 
Fortunately, Starline makes and sells new 38-40 brass.

The .38-40 case is so close dimensionally to the .44-40 that you can convert a .44-40 case into a .38-40 case by forcing it into a .38-40 resizing die.
 
The only problem is the cases still have their original headstamps, only a problem if you have guns in both calibers.

Unless of course, you get the special deluxe headstamp changing dies.:D
 
Doc Hoy, the short stroke kits give the rifle a better feel, but I'm not a fast enough CAS shooter that it would be likely to make a difference in my standings, and certainly not fast enough where the extra few thousandths of a second faster lock times of the coil spring conversion would! The coil spring conversion is definitely more uniform over the cocking stroke, but nothing I would ever spend the money on, although it's pretty cool this rifle already has it installed. ;)
 
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