win STHP .44spl has been a light loaded 200gr. slug for at least 3 decades; in both the aluminum jacket and the zinc washed copper jacket. if it was something else before 1988 I can't comment.
reliability of CA 44 bulldog
- Thread starter curly45
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44caliberkid
New member
I stand corrected.
TruthTellers
New member
I think it's important for us to understand what your intended use for this will be. The CA Bulldog is strictly a carry gun, it's not meant to be a plinker to have thousands of rounds shot thru it every year. If you're okay with only putting 50 rds thru it once a month, it can do that.
If you're looking for something you can shoot a lot and be a good carry gun, I can't recommend the Bulldog, not from all that I've heard about them. If you want a small, light, inexpensive big bore revolver you can shoot a lot, look at the CA Pitbull in .45 ACP or the Taurus Poly Public Defender in .45/.410.
If you're looking for something you can shoot a lot and be a good carry gun, I can't recommend the Bulldog, not from all that I've heard about them. If you want a small, light, inexpensive big bore revolver you can shoot a lot, look at the CA Pitbull in .45 ACP or the Taurus Poly Public Defender in .45/.410.
lee n. field
New member
So, "it goes bang until it doesn't"?
Have read or heard that some of the Charter Arms are better made than other ones due to dates made ect. Would like to get information on this before buying one. Any valid information welcome. Thanks
Charco and Charter 2000, said to be not so great. Internet hearsay, no personal experience.
Once upon a time I had bookmark to a thread on one of the forums, Highroad, I think, where someone laid out Charter Arms dates, serial numbers and manufacturing locations. If I can find it I'll edit it in.
(Found it. Check out the second post in this thread Please help Identify Bulldog 44 Special.)
Ha ha! No.
I did a spot check the other day. Went to Midway USA, sorted handguns by availability. On page 5 of 35 it went from Available or Mixed Availability, to Unavailable. Available stuff appeared to me to be mostly high dollar stuff and single action revolvers.
I keep reading that Charters are "carried a lot, shot a little". That's not how I work. If I'm carrying it, it goes with me and gets shot every time I go shooting.
My personal experience with Charter Arms revolvers earlier this decade involved too much breakage to trust it. Broken transfer bars, mostly. Sold it off and moved on. Would be willing to try again, if I thought they made the transfer better now, of if they just "had a bad batch of transfer bars".
I would, seriously and honestly, on the low end be more interested in finding one of Taurus' .44 Special snubs. Practically, the XDS45 gets you to exactly the same place for a self defense gun.
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TruthTellers
New member
^ I can attest to the broken transfer bars. My Professional broke after probably 800 dry fired trigger pulls. My guess is that all their transfer bars are MIM and while I don't hate MIM like some do, when it comes to parts that have to take repeated impacts, a transfer bar is the last part I would want to be MIM'd.
I had a transfer bar break on my Ruger New Model Blackhawk. They probably don't have a reputation for that, but who knows?
My Bulldog is an older Stratford model from the early 80's. CA polished it up nice and reblued it for me. My hands are not that large - usually wear a large glove, and xtra large in some gloves and I find the trigger guard likes to come back and slam the knuckle of my middle finger. The newer rubber grips they come with are the most comfortable and help the most with that particular problem.
If you buy your pants with "deep" pockets you can pocket carry a 3" Bulldog. They ride just below the open pocket and are not visible. It's most comfortable in a belt holster and light enough to be worn every day without discomfort.
I'm glad I bought mine and do enjoy shooting it. You may find it needs the screws checked for tightness after a range session. Especially the crane screw and also the ejector rod. CA has a good customer service dept and they try hard to keep everyone happy. I sent my older model in for some work and to center its poi. Mine needed a barrel replacement to center poi on target and does now. I've settled on 200 grains bullets in mine. Std velocity works out just fine. Too many have proven that trying to up velocity only loosens these light guns up over time - sometimes it doesn't take too much time. But then, I've seen +P 38s loosen a steel S&W 36 with the old pinned barrel also.
My Bulldog is an older Stratford model from the early 80's. CA polished it up nice and reblued it for me. My hands are not that large - usually wear a large glove, and xtra large in some gloves and I find the trigger guard likes to come back and slam the knuckle of my middle finger. The newer rubber grips they come with are the most comfortable and help the most with that particular problem.
If you buy your pants with "deep" pockets you can pocket carry a 3" Bulldog. They ride just below the open pocket and are not visible. It's most comfortable in a belt holster and light enough to be worn every day without discomfort.
I'm glad I bought mine and do enjoy shooting it. You may find it needs the screws checked for tightness after a range session. Especially the crane screw and also the ejector rod. CA has a good customer service dept and they try hard to keep everyone happy. I sent my older model in for some work and to center its poi. Mine needed a barrel replacement to center poi on target and does now. I've settled on 200 grains bullets in mine. Std velocity works out just fine. Too many have proven that trying to up velocity only loosens these light guns up over time - sometimes it doesn't take too much time. But then, I've seen +P 38s loosen a steel S&W 36 with the old pinned barrel also.
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458winshooter
New member
44 CA
I bought mine new in 2008 and have had no issues with it save one. I have posted before that taking it to the range once I fired several rounds through it in a short time frame and the cylinder started dragging because it had heated up. I have always loaded it with max or near max loads and it has not given any other problems.
I bought mine new in 2008 and have had no issues with it save one. I have posted before that taking it to the range once I fired several rounds through it in a short time frame and the cylinder started dragging because it had heated up. I have always loaded it with max or near max loads and it has not given any other problems.
The way I see it if you are carrying a gun you are doing it for self defense, life & death situations. Why would you trust your life to a product that isn’t top shelf? We already established CA revolvers are not durable. How do we know when it will fail? You aren’t going to fire it much because because of this. I can’t wrap my head around why anyone would use them for more than a range toy. I’m not just badmouthing CA either. There is a bunch of guns on the market that are not something I would want to stake my life on.
lee n. field
New member
Because you can afford it.
My Undercovers' transfer bars looked to me like a stamping, rather than MIM. And there very little radius between the upright and the "flag", which is where it broke, each time. Looked like metal fatigue.
Ok, I can see, the what I can afford angle, on any inexpensive gun. Any gun is better than no gun. There aren’t to many guys on gun forums just to talk about their Charter Arms revolver. When my boy was right out of school he was taking Police Cadet trading. The kid was a good shot with handguns but, but he was one of those kids that could break a cannon ball with a rubber hammer. At the time I had at least 6 assorted 38sps. S&Ws & Colt. What I did was buy him brand new CA .357, Police Bulldog I think was name of it. The instructors on the shooting were all presently LEO or retired ones. I knew about all the Law within 100mile or
so. When boy broke out the CA, instructor took it, gave Shawn his 686 to use that day. Told him to take CA home and tell me If I didnt send him back with a decent gun he was coming to see me. They only shot 38sp ammo in course.
so. When boy broke out the CA, instructor took it, gave Shawn his 686 to use that day. Told him to take CA home and tell me If I didnt send him back with a decent gun he was coming to see me. They only shot 38sp ammo in course.
ccSnoopycc
New member
If the new bulldogs coming out of the factory are anything like the undercoverette I just bought then they will be a very decent firearm. I am very pleased both with the value, lockup, and overall feel of the guns they are currently making.
I bought a brand new stainless .44 bulldog around 2009, got it home, cleaned it up and gave it a good look over. The cylinder was so far out of time you could look down the barrel and see a crescent section of the face of the cylinder on every chamber it was so far out of time.
Never even shot it, took it back and that was it for me and CA.
I probably should have tried another, just never did. Two Ruger flat tops kept me happy with 44 spl. A double action would be nice though!
Never even shot it, took it back and that was it for me and CA.
I probably should have tried another, just never did. Two Ruger flat tops kept me happy with 44 spl. A double action would be nice though!
wow. two earlier bulldogs I had to shoot about 200 rounds through before they went out of time and had pins and screws come loose. I had very good luck with an Off Duty snub .38 and a 3" Pathfinder .22lr. out of the .44spls I had two that were junk, one that was useable and one that was good. that said I end up getting one every now and then... a lesson hard learned for me...
Well, I have a CA Patriot 2 1/2" in .327 Fed Mag and that round is really brutal in this snub. So, to keep the revolver from wear/stretching, I only shoot 32 H&R Mags out of it and I shoot it every range trip.
I also reload, having accumulated a lot of brass for it. I push the 32 H&R reloads to +P specs and the revolver is working great.
I was concerned about a steady diet of the .327's, so I'm sticking with the 32 H&R's.
Since this is a fairly new model (discontinued now), the quality is very good being made in the Shelton, CT factory.
I also reload, having accumulated a lot of brass for it. I push the 32 H&R reloads to +P specs and the revolver is working great.
I was concerned about a steady diet of the .327's, so I'm sticking with the 32 H&R's.
Since this is a fairly new model (discontinued now), the quality is very good being made in the Shelton, CT factory.
Cheapshooter
New member
Do you have a mouse in your pocket that agrees with you? Because "we" have established nothing about Charter not being durable. Maybe in the elitist world of gun snobs, but certainly not in the practical real world.
The CA Bulldog is a unique gun ... there is nothing else out there to fairly compare it to. The S&W 69 weighs 34 oz and costs $800, whereas the CA Bulldog weighs 20 oz and costs $400. I have a newer Bulldog and like it a lot ... I don’t use it much, as I didn’t buy it as a range gun. I do trust it for carry.
Unique or a marketing ploy?
Many of the responders here in this thread have raised durability issues with the CA Bulldog.
I've long suspected the Bulldog was brought out just to cash in on the ".44 craze" of the Dirty Harry movie hype.
(& please don't throw the fact that Dirty Harry was a .44 mag & the Bulldog is a special in my face - both are .44s & the public at that time - both shooters & non shooters just looked at it as a .44)
I strongly suspect the gun itself was built and designed around the anemic factory 246 grain lead round nose bullet that was standard fare in that era.
Today - .44 special ammunition has evolved - but - since many of the better loads warn not to use them in the Bulldog - it apears that the gun itself hasn't.
I'll stick with what I believe to be the best approach - which is - if there's any doubt, remove it by making a different selection.
I did that myself. I always wanted a CA Bulldog - but - I quickly became disenchanted with the performance of the .44 special round itself.
I bided my time until I was able to affordably step up to a .44 magnum that offered close to the same carry possibilities of the Bulldog.
I'm content to trade off weight for more available power & price for both reliability & durability.