Howdy Again
Sorry about the SSA remark. It really was not very kind. What I was trying to refute was your statement about "Italy uses inferior metal is what I heard."
That is a pretty broad brush statement. There is nothing at all inferior about the steel that Uberti or most of the other Italian gun makers uses. Most of them use a good grade of Arsenal steel. What I was trying to point out is there are some details that I believe Colt does better than the Italians do. Details like the hardened recoil shield, the way the hammer is made, the sights, and the Case Hardening. And these details are part of what adds to the cost of a Colt.
To my understanding Uberti guns have forged frames and barrels.
Yes, Uberti frames are forged. No, the barrels are not. There is no point to forging a round barrel. Forging is a process of heating a steel blank until it is soft, then placing it in a formed mold on a hammer forge and slamming it with tremendous force to reshape the metal. The same thing the village blacksmith used to do with a hammer except on a really big machine. This process alters the grain of the metal to follow the contours of the part. After forging, the part is only roughly the shape of the finished part. The frames then need to be machined to their final shape. Since the grain of the part now follows the general shape, machining away excess material does not cut through the grain very much, resulting in a stronger part. Smith and Wesson forges their barrels because the shape is not a simple cylinder. But with the simple cylindrical shape of most Single Action barrels, they are simply machined directly from round stock. The same with cylinders.
I had the chance to tour the Smith and Wesson factory a few years ago. I saw bins and bins of frames that had come off the hammer forges and were waiting for the next machining steps to bring them to their final shape. The bins I saw held the great big frames used in the various 50 caliber revolvers that S&W makes now. What surprised me the most was the that S&W uses round stock for blanks. A blank that has been cut to length is heated until it glows red hot. Then it is centered with tongs on the mold in the Hammer Forge. Then the huge hammer slams down on the part, causing it to flow and fill up the shape of the mold. It usually took a few strikes, and the molds on the forge were progressive, the part was moved from one mold to the next to shape it progressively.
Regarding the hardened insert in the recoil shield, or lack of it: The firing pin in a Colt style hammer is free to wiggle a little bit up and down. That is part of the design. The hole in the recoil shield for the firing pin is tapered. As the hammer falls, the firing pin rubs the edges of the hole, 'finding its way' through the recoil shield. That is part of the design too. This rubbing can displace metal along the the edge of hole, raising a burr, which can cause the 'cratering' that Bob Wright mentioned. I have had two Uberti Cattlemen. The first one had a lot of problems. The trigger was terrible, the barrel was not screwed in properly so that the front sight leaned to one side, and the 'cratering' around the firing pin hole kept recurring. I would stone the burr flat, but after a box or two of ammo the burr would return. I finally solved the problem by very carefully making a slight countersink around the hole. That way, any raised burr tended to fill the countersink, and not stand proud of the recoil shield. This gun had so many problems that I eventually sold it and used the cash as a down payment on a Ruger Vaquero.
A few years later I took a chance on another used Cattleman. This one was much better. It still had some issues with the firing pin hole, but not as bad as the first one.
Colt SAA on top in this photo, Uberti Cattleman at the bottom.
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Anyway, Uberti makes reliable, serviceable reproductions of the Colt Single Action Army. They are quality firearms. No, they are not Colts, but neither do they cost as much as a Colt.
