Price check in the schofield aisle, please.

[BerdanSS]

So today was the opening day of yet another year at the Croy Creek Traders fair. There was some decent stuff today. A beautiful never fired investor arms double pin hawken for $130, a NIB (with the original box) CVA kentucky rifle asking $180...and something else that caught my eye.

While looking at one of those auto-loading monstrositys, I saw a box that said NAVY ARMS poking up out of a rubber tub. I asked the table owner jokingly "you have the pistol that goes with that?" (sales of handguns are not permitted at the fair) He looked around and said "yepper". he picked up the box and pulled out an unfired, flawless 7" schofield...chambered in 44-40. The barrel is marked Navy Arms co. and Uberti. I got his cell number, he's asking $500 but pretty sure he'll take $450.

I had plans to order a 7&1/2" Cimrron model P in 44-40 by the end of next month. But I always liked the look of Schofields, and don't see them very often. Until today, I've never so much as handled one.

Sound like a good price? thoughts?

 

[BerdanSS]

The pistol does have the original box and paperwork. Heck it still had oil on it and was wrapped in the plastic bag inside the box. The box tag matches the SN on the pistol. He bought it new, and said until just yesterday it had been in his gun safe...with the original box seal in tacked

Said he had a couple walkers in similar condition too.


<Edit> good lord, cimarrons msrp on these is just under $1100. Maybe I better call him back

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

That is an excellent price. Most places are asking $900 - $1000 for them.

But a couple of cautions. Make sure it was made by Uberti. The very early imported Schofields were made by ASM, and they had a lot of problems. Look for the Uberti name on the gun, and look for the Uberti trademark. If the gun was made by ASM, walk away.

Uberti trademark:

The other thing is, since this is the Black Powder and CAS forum, the replica Schofields generally do not perform very well with Black Powder, in case you want to shoot Black Powder in it. The originals were designed for Black Powder and shot it very well without binding.

In 1873 the Army signed a contract with Colt to buy the brand new Single Action Army revolver, to replace all the old percussion revolvers left over from the Civil War. The Army stipulated the caliber must be 45, and the 45 Colt cartridge was developed for the SAA. Smith and Wesson had been running at capacity providing the Russian model, chambered for the much shorter 44 Russian cartridge, to various foreign governments. But they did not want to miss out on a lucrative US government contract. They made overtures to the Army, but the Army wanted any revolvers they bought chambered for the 45 Colt cartridge. Smith and Wesson's tooling was designed for cylinders and frames for the shorter 44 Russian cartridge. In order to build a Top Break revolver that could chamber the longer 45 Colt cartridge, they would have to retool to make a longer frame and cylinder, an expensive proposition. So they proposed a shorter cartridge, that eventually became known as the 45 Schofield round; 45 caliber, but short enough to fit in the shorter frames and cylinders that S&W could make without retooling. The Army agreed and S&W signed contracts with the Army and built around 9000 Schofield revolvers, all produced from 1875-1878 or so. Eventually the Army surplussed out these revolvers, but that is another story.

When the Italian replica makers started making copies of the Schofield, they made the decision to go with the longer, and more easily available 45 Colt and 44-40 cartridges, rather than the original 45 Schofield cartridge. This meant the cylinders would have to be longer than the originals. But they also decided not to lengthen the frames by the same amount, wanting to keep the overall appearance of the replicas pretty much the same as the originals. In order to do this, they shortened the cylinder bushing on the front of the cylinder to fit the longer cylinder into the regular sized frame. The length of the cylinder bushing is the most critical part in keeping fouling blasted out of the barrel/cylinder gap from coating the cylinder arbor. Fouling blasted onto the arbor that works its way down between the arbor and cylinder is the chief cause of binding with revolvers shooting Black Powder.

The upshot is the replica Schofield revolvers do not perform very well with Black Powder, they tend to bind up quickly. I'm not saying it is impossible to shoot BP in one, but they tend to bind up very quickly. They are fine with Smokeless powder.

Shooting a Schofield is a bit different than shooting a Colt style revolver. The hammer spur curves up pretty sharply, and I find it a bit of a stretch to grab the hammer spur to cock the gun. I usually have to regrip after every shot to reach the hammer. All the S&W single action Top Breaks had that kind of hammer spur, I don't know why, but I find they all are a bit more difficult to cock than a Colt.



P.S. Just reread your post and see the gun was made by Uberti, so you are OK on that score. If you want to shoot Smokeless in it, grab it. Great price.

 

[BerdanSS]

Thank you driftwood, good information sir. I will be primarily using black powder cartridges...as it (and the substitutes) are much better priced and more available to me than smokeless. So for a pistol I'll shoot the heck out of the model P may be better. But I'm toying with buying it as a collectors/investment piece since I'd be getting one NIB for less than half of MSRP

 

[PetahW]

.

FWIW, repro's are not investment's - they are shooters, even NIB.

If it's not an ASM, I would put repro S&W grips on it & shoot the snot out of it (and enjoy myself in the process).


.

 

[BerdanSS]

Apologies for my terminology. To me buying something at a good price, that will only go up in value over what was paid for it....Is an investment

I'm not really a smith and wesson guy, so I'm going to have to google what original grips look like

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

This is an original 1st Model Schofield made in 1875. This is what the grips look like. I don't really understand the comment about putting repro S&W grips on it, there is nothing inauthentic about the standard grips that come on an Uberti Schofield.