Uberti 1873 rifles

S

stubbicatt

New member
For some strange reason I have been eyeballing Uberti 1873 clones. I've seen a couple at local gun stores, watched Hickok45 videos on youtube, and read what I could about them. Few days ago I was all set to buy the version I wanted in 45 Colt, when I learned that perhaps I should instead go 44-40, as it was a cartridge more suitable for black powder, were I to choose to use that propellant.

My uses are simply plinking, perhaps shoot the thing on steel to 200 or 300 yards. Actually, I have no use for one at all other than the joy of shooting it. I flirted with the idea of cowboy action shooting, but watching those videos left me cold. (Meh).

The rifles come in two general configurations, one with a straight grip stock, perhaps checkered, perhaps not, and a pistol grip stock of sorts with checkering on it and the fore end. I gravitate towards the pistol grip version, except one can see light between the lever and the bottom tang which leads me to believe that Uberti uses the same lever on both versions, which gap I find a little bit unsightly.

Question 1 is, in use, is there any advantage or disadvantage to the pistol grip?

The action lever must be closed and compressed by the firing hand with what seems to me to be unnecessary grip strength in order to discharge the weapon. There is a plunger of sorts protruding from the bottom tang behind the trigger which engages with the lever in order to assure that the action is fully closed before the rifle will allow the hammer to fall.

Question 2 is, is there a way to reduce the amount of tension one must use to grip the lever against that plunger? Perhaps a lighter spring or something? Does the rifle get a little bit easier in this grip strength issue as it is used a bit, and breaks in with use?

My eyes aren't what they were once, and I can barely make out the front sight post on the rifle. I have visited Uberti's website and note that they have available tang sights for this rifle. They offer at least 2 which are suitable. Apparently one would require drilling and tapping of a second hole on the upper tang, which near as I can tell, the other affixes simply with the single hole already in place which holds the butt stock to the tang.

Question 3 is, do both of these tang sights hold zero ok, and which of them do you recommend and why?

Question 4 is, is there any advantage to a larger aperture disc on the top of the tang sight? I gotta say that the Lyman style aperture with the peep in that small diameter rod looks like it could really put someone's eye out.. ;)

Lastly any other general words of advice you care to share?

Thanks gents for your helpful contributions.

PS. I still haven't decided on which cartridge, but I am leaning towards 44-40.
 
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I bought a short rifle in .45 Colt 10+ years ago. Yes that plunger spring can be lightened. I used a fiber optic front sight from Brownels and a Marble tang also tried a Smith enterprise ladder buckhorn rear sight.

I tried pyrodex, 2400, Titegroup and Unique along with Lyman 454190, Lee's 255gr rf and a couple of dfferent SWCs sized .452, .454. This rifle proved to be a consistant 4 to 6 inch shooter at 50 yds. After years of beating my head against a wall, I bought a Chiappa 92 carbine copy in 45 Colt, screwed onthe tang sight, grabbed some random reloads and at 50yds it was a consistant 2" shooter. Just my experience.
 
Pretty much flip a coin between 44-40 and .45 Colt. They're both black powder rounds that have similar case capacity and similar bullets.

I'd go with Trail Boss or some similar BP substitute.

The difference between a straight and pistol grip is personal preference. I like the looks of the pistol grips better, but as far as using the gun it doesn't make much difference to me.
 
The difference between the .45 colt and .44-40 is the fact that if you use black powder, the straight walled .45 case lets a lot of soot, or blow-by back into the action and the rifle will freeze up eventually until it is cleaned. When fired, the bottle necked .44-40 seals the chamber and keeps the soot out of the action. The .44-40, or 44 WCF was the original caliber of the 1873 Winchester. You can anneal the cases of the .45 and cut the blow-by way down if not entirely. I only shoot full BP hand loads in my Uberti 1873 rifle, and I love it. It's hell on groundhogs around the farm and it works quite well on deer too.

As for the straight vs. pistol grip stock, I had both. The curve in the pistol stock was so shallow that they didn't feel a whole lot different when shouldering them, to me. I sold the pistol gripped one but I still have the straight stocked 24 inch sporting rifle.
 
To elaborate a little on the lever spring, yes it is an easy modification you can do yourself. I don't remember the name of the particular spring I got, but search on something like '1873 lever safety spring' and you should find it.

Mine works fine and the lever is so light to compress that you don't even know it's there.

I have a 44-40, but the only reason I got it was the selling price. The cartridges are fairly expensive but little more than .45 long colt, if any.

Chaz
 
Thanks guys.

MJN77, I have cleaned up black powder residue from 40-65 cartridges in a single shot Italian Sharps rifle, and it was relatively painless, but with all the action parts necessitating cleaning from the muzzle end of things, how do you clean up your 1873 when you shoot black without shoveling a heap of soot into the action?

Any input on tang sights?
 
Two `73's here: One 24" straight grip 44-40, one 20" pistol grip 357. Apples & Oranges/not much true advantage one way of the other. A matter of druthers

Lyman #2 tang sight on both: Rock solid (even much more than my Marbles' on my `92's). It comes with two aperture disks: 0.093 and 0.040. (Don't worry about putting your eye out ;) )
http://media.midwayusa.com/productimages/880x660/Primary/424/424684.jpg
http://media.midwayusa.com/productimages/880x660/Primary/546/546951.jpg

I've shot both black and smokless in both. Because there really isn't any exposed "action" at the chamber (just the solid elevator block), there's little place for anything to wash down into except straight out the bottom at the edge of chamber mouth. A little Ballistol (or 7:1 water cutting oil mix) on the final patches pretty well cleans/protects anything it comes in contact with after that.
 
I clean the barrel on my 73 with an empty cartridge case in the chamber to catch all the crud. After the barrel is clean, a quick cleaning of the chamber itself and oil and wipe the lifter. Takes about five minutes.
 
I have a 24" 1873 Special Sporting Model (pistol grip) and the lever is definitely curved, not straight as I also have Uberti's 1866 Yellowboy 19" carbine with a straight stock. I have a Lyman tang sight on my '73 and use the target aperture as the small hole increases the Depth of Field (DOF) so both the front sight and target are in focus. I'm 67 and don't have good eyes and the tang sight really helps.

As to the lever safety, mine has minimal resistance to closing and is a safety issue so disabling it is a bad idea. The tang sights all require a second hole drilled and tapped into the tang so just assume you'll need a gunsmith visit to get it right. I went with a Lyman tang for my '73 as they were available on the original. The 'disc' on the top of the tang screws in and you get a few different sizes with the tang sight. The largest one is the target version with the smallest aperture which produces the longest DOF.

To understand DOF see the Wikipedia link HERE. In short, a small aperture close to your eye gives you a very long DOF; long enough so that you can see both the front sight and the target clearly even if your eyesight is not good. Remember a pinhole camera? It has virtually an infinite DOF as everything is in focus because the hole (aperture) is so small.

I also have two Rossis in 357mag, a 24" rifle and 20" carbine. I have a Marbles tang on my Rossi rifle for the same reason as my '73. As the 92's action is really strong, I can load up my 357mag loads to max pressure and a bit beyond without any worry about the action. With 158grn full power handloads, I'm able to shoot my Rossi rifle accurately out to 300yds in a calm day. That's 300yds with a pistol bullet!!

Both my Ubertis are chambered in 45 Colt because I wanted a 45 Colt. Yes, I know that a 44-40 would have been more 'correct' but I like the idea of having a 45 Colt and it gave me the excuse to buy one of their Cattleman SAA in the same caliber as I have a Cattleman SA Cavalry model in 357mag for my Rossis. No matter what you get, get one you'll feel comfortable shooting and can afford to feed ammo to because of all my rifles (over 40), my leverguns, all 7 of them, are my favorites.

Obligatory pictures:

IMG_2244a_zpsd444fc8f.jpg


IMG_2245a_zps2c983d89.jpg
 
Thanks gents. Really.

I like the cartridge in the chamber trick. Fine idea that one.

COsteve, those are some pretty rifles. When you mounted the Lyman sight, did you have to drill through the wording on the tang of the rifle? I think that is the sight I will have to get. And yes, the aperture is very helpful for aging eyes. If you had to choose just one, would you get the 45 or the 357 version?

I'm feeling more positive about this acquisition, and I do like the pistol grip stock, and the 24" barrel.
 
COSteve:

Were you able to use the standard Lyman screws to mount the sight on the '73 special sporter tang or did you have to buy the longer tang screw?

I've got the same rifle and would love to put a tang sight on it!
 
I like the cartridge in the chamber trick. Fine idea that one.
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I do that with my Rossi 92 in 44-40 but it doesn't work with .45 Colt or other straight walled cases. MJN knows what he's talking about.
 
...doesn't work with .45 Colt or other straight walled cases
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I use it (empty case in mouth ) with both 45 and 44Mag rifles,
so I don't know what the problem might be.

BTW, I stuff the case with a cleaning patch.
 
Howdy

A few things.

I'd go with Trail Boss or some similar BP substitute.
Click to expand...

Trailboss is NOT a Black Powder substitute. This is a common misconception. Trailboss was formulated for the needs of Cowboy Action Shooting reloaders who needed a powder that would take up a lot of space inside the large capacity old cartridges such as 45 Colt or 44-40 when loaded down very lightly. The huge amount of airspace inside these cartridges when they are loaded down ridiculously low with a few flakes of Smokeless powders tends to make for poor burning characteristics. So Hodgdon developed Trail Boss with its characteristic donut shaped grains that take up a lot of volume. But make no mistake, Trail Boss is not a BP substitute the way Pyrodex, APP, or 777 are. Trail Boss is a Smokeless powder that develops similar pressures to other fast Smokleless powders. NEVER use Trail Boss in a percussion revolver that is stamped Black Powder only!

Having said all that, there is nothing wrong with using any of the common Smokeless pistol powders in a reproduction toggle link rifle, such as the 1860 Henry, Winchester 1866, or Winchester 1873 reproductions made by Uberti as long as SAMMI Max pressures are observed. These rifles are proofed in Italy for Smokeless loads. On the rare occasion that I shoot Smokeless in one, I usually use Unique.

Lets talk for a moment about why 44-40 is a better Black Powder cartridge in a rifle than 45 Colt. Contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with the bottle neck shape of the 44-40 round. High pressure gas has no problem going around corners. It is because the brass at the case mouth tends to be much thinner with the bottle neck cartridges such as 44-40 or 38-40 than 45 Colt. 44-40 or 38-40 brass tends to run around .007 thick at the case mouth. 45 Colt tends to run around .012 thick at the case mouth. That is why 44-40 or 38-40 seal a rifle chamber better than 45 Colt, the relatively low pressure developed by Black Powder expands the thin brass to seal the chamber better than the thicker 45 Colt brass, keeping the fouling in the bore and not allowing it to blow by the case into the action. That's all there is to it.

On the other hand, that same thin brass can be the Achilles's heel of the old WCF cartridges when reloading them. It takes a bit more finesse to load 44-40 than it does 45 Colt, Black Powder or Smokeless. I ain't saying it is difficult, as many say, but loading 44-40 (or 38-40) does tend to be a bit fussier. You have to be sure your dies are set a bit more precisely, and you can't rush, or you may ruin a piece of brass if you slam it into the bottom of the decap/resizing die. 45 Colt is a bit more forgiving because the case mouth is thicker.

Most of the time with the 1873 reproductions made by Uberti, the curved pistol grip models tend to come with checkering while the straight grip models come without checkering. The originals were available from Winchester with just about any combination you could think of. The pistol grip models have a different lower tang and lever than the straight grip models. Do not be confused by the photos on the Uberti website, the white background highlights the distance between the lever and the lower tang. They all have a bit of a gap, it is not a big deal. This photo should make that clear. The originals looked like this too.

uberti%201873%20action_zpsgch953wh.jpg


I am not aware that Uberti makes any tang sights. The two that I am aware of are the ones made by Lyman and Marbles.

The main difference is the Lyman is not adjustable for windage, the Marlbles is.
Here is a photo of a Lyman tang sight that I had a gunsmith mount onto a Winchester Model 1892. Yes, he had to drill and tap an extra hole for the front of the sight. And the rear screw needs to be longer than the stock screw. Sorry, I don't remember if the sight came with screws or not.

tangsight_zps3b066224.jpg


Here is a link to the Marlbles tang sight page.

http://www.marblearms.com/standardPeepTang.html

They both hold the zero fine, as long as you don't bang them around.

For Black Powder cleaning I have been doing the bit where you pop an empty case into the chamber for cleaning for years. I do caution that you NOT use a jag, use the slotted end of the cleaning rod with a patch soaked with your favorite water soluable BP cleaning solution. If you use a jag, you may find that the jag gets jammed in the empty case mouth, causing great gnashing of teeth. I hold the rifle upright, using three or four clean patches in the slotted end of the cleaning rod. The first few will come out crusty and coated with fouling, when they come out uniform gray the bore is clean and all the soot has been washed down inside the empty case. Turn the rifle upside down and eject the empty onto the ground. It will come out with a spray of black, gooky solvent. Do not do this on a white carpet. Although all my lever guns are 44-40 or 38-40, I can't imagine why you could not do this with 45 Colt.



The lever safety of the 1873 Winchester is not a modern lawyer driven safety device, the originals had them almost from the beginning. This is because the then brand new 44-40 cartridge was roughly 50% more powerful than the old 44 Henry Rimfire cartridge that both the Henry and 1866 Winchester chambered. The engineers at Winchester rightly figured that a device that prevented out of battery discharge with the more powerful cartridge would be a good thing. The spring that Uberti uses for the lever safety is overly stiff. Many competitors in CAS were disabling the lever safety completely up until a few years ago when it was clearly demonstrated what could happen with an out of battery discharge in a toggle link rifle. Bad things can happen. I fashioned a replacement spring from music wire a number of years ago. I don't seem to be able to find a photo of it. But when The Smith Shop offered a commercial version I replaced my home made one with one of theirs.

http://www.thesmithshop.com/leversafety.html

Note: you will have to do some disassembly to install the lever safety spring. It is not difficult and Hap's instructions are excellent. But be aware that Bongo the gorilla runs around the Uberti factory at night with his torque wrench and over tightens all the screws. Uberti screws are notoriously soft, and the first time you try to back them out it is really easy to bung up the screw slot. Do not try backing them out the first time with ordinary hardware store screw drivers with wedge shaped blades. The blade will try to rise up out of the slot and if it does you will bung up the screw. Invest in some decent gunsmith hollow ground screw drivers such as the Brownells Magna Tips. At the very least, buy a Chapman set. But Brownells guarantees theirs against breaking and will replace any that break or bend. Be sure to bear down hard on the screw so the driver does not climb out while slowly torquing it out.

Lastly, don't sell Cowboy Action Shooting short. The videos you see on U Tube or on TV do not do it justice. They only tend to show the really fast shooters who shoot mouse fart loads. That is just the tip of the iceberg. There are those of us who march to a different drummer.

BlackPowderCountryPond_zpsc1361063.jpg


P.S. That is my Uberti 1860 Henry, chambered for 44-40 with full house Black Powder loads.
 
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Driftwood Johnson, thanks for the informative posting. Neat photos too.

I have been in contact with a fellow who does action jobs on the 1873s. He tells me that without an action job on a stock rifle, the rifle will beat itself to death and develop malfunctions. I did not ask what sorts of malfunctions. He can sell me a rifle with an action job, and I have asked for a price quote. It seems unlikely to me that a stock rifle will beat itself to death, and I sense that he makes his bread on action jobs, and may be trying to sell me something I don't really need.

I do not foresee myself rapid firing the rifle, and doubt whether the benefits of an action job (assuming that it is not necessary for longevity and function) will be appreciated by me, at least until I have a base line of experience on a stock rifle, upon which to gage said benefits.

What is your take on this advice?
 
Trail Boss is a Smokeless powder that develops similar pressures to other fast Smokeless powders.
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In fact TrailBoss delivers an extremely fast pressure rise time (aka "spike") relative to most smokeless loads.

It can be very hard on original BP actions.
 
I have been in contact with a fellow who does action jobs on the 1873s. He tells me that without an action job on a stock rifle, the rifle will beat itself to death and develop malfunctions. I did not ask what sorts of malfunctions. He can sell me a rifle with an action job, and I have asked for a price quote. It seems unlikely to me that a stock rifle will beat itself to death, and I sense that he makes his bread on action jobs, and may be trying to sell me something I don't really need.

I do not foresee myself rapid firing the rifle, and doubt whether the benefits of an action job (assuming that it is not necessary for longevity and function) will be appreciated by me, at least until I have a base line of experience on a stock rifle, upon which to gage said benefits.
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FWIW, I have owned and shot Uberti guns for going on thirty years and I have never had an action job or anything else done to my guns to slick them up. I do not "cowboy" shoot, but I do use my guns as "working" or "farm" guns. They have been in the rain and snow. They have been coated in mud, dirt, hay dust and sweat. I have used them to put down injured cattle or to shoot the occasional groundhog. I even used a Uberti 1873 carbine in .44-40 to kill a couple of wild dogs that threatened my Dad. I also plink and hunt with them. The only folk I hear (or read) saying that the Uberti guns will "beat itself to death" are the fellows that make money off of doing action jobs (as you surmised), guys who do NOT "cowboy" shoot, but want to justify spending $$ on an unnecessary, but wanted action job, or the guys that DO "cowboy" shoot and use these guns harder and faster than they were meant to be used and actually NEED an action job. I have had many Uberti guns, both rifle and revolver. I have used them as the originals were used, and not one of them beat itself up. The only repairs I have had to preform on any of them have been the normal occasional replacement of springs. So no, you do not NEED an action job. Unless you WANT one.
 
OK, so here is another point of view.

I currently own 2 Uberti rifles; an 1860 Henry and a 1873, both chambered for 44-40. I also own an Uberti Cattleman chambered for 45 Colt, and an Uberti 1858 Remington New Model Army. I have had all these guns apart many times and know them pretty well inside. For comparison I own an original Winchester Model 1873 made in 1887, a couple of original Winchester Model 1892 rifles made in 1894 and 1916, a few Colt Single Action Army revolvers, and several original Smith and Wesson #3 Top Break revolvers.

Read up about Uberti guns and everybody raves about the fit and finish on the outside. But few people talk about the insides of the guns, and that is where fit and finish really counts, not the cosmetics on the outside. Uberti runs their CNC equipment very fast. They do this to crank out as many parts per hour as possible. This is only natural, since machine time is money. The result of the high feed rates on the CNC equipment is that parts have rough surface finishes, sharp edges, and burrs. I have compared the surface finishes of Uberti internals to the surface finishes of the Winchesters, Colts and Smiths I have mentioned. In every case, the Uberti parts have had rough surfaces. And I was particularly dismayed with all the burrs left on the inside of the frame of my Uberti 1873. In years past, firearms manufacturers employed legions of workers whose sole job was to clean up the parts after they had been machined. Rough surfaces, burrs, and sharp edges were carefully smoothed by hand labor. No more. The parts come directly off the machines and go into parts bins where they are stored for assembly. There is an absolute minimum of hand finishing or fitting of parts any more. Don't let anybody tell you that CNC parts are automatically better than parts made on conventional milling machines that are later hand finished. I used to program CNC equipment, and final finish is all about speeds and feeds. Run the feed rates high and you get a rough finish.

What is the point? Firearms consist of metal parts rubbing against metal parts. There are no ball bearings inside a firearm. A thin coating of oil will help parts glide over other parts, but if the surfaces that rub against each other are rough, two things happen. First is that extra friction is generated as the parts slide over or past each other. So extra force is needed for the parts to function. Uberti (and other companies) provides the extra force by using springs that are heavier (stiffer) than would be necessary if there was less friction being generated. Second is that the parts will wear until the surfaces have smoothed themselves out. If one part is harder than the other, the harder one will wear away the softer one. That is simple physics.

Comparing modern Uberti firearms right out of the box to the firearms I mentioned made 50 -100 years ago, it is obvious to me that fresh out of the box Uberti rifles tend to be a little bit rough. Not terribly so, but they do tend to be rough. With a rifle it takes more force to operate the lever than it should if the parts were properly tuned. This is mostly because of the heavy springs that Uberti uses. Case in point, remember what I said about how stiff the lever safety spring is? When you operate the lever of a rifle, one of the things you are doing is cocking the hammer, so you are bending the stiff hammer spring.

But let's stop for a moment and consider why the springs are so heavy. In order for the gun to fire reliably, the hammer spring needs to be stiff enough to ignite the primers on all brands of ammunition. But it also has to be stiff enough to overcome the internal friction generated by the rough parts rubbing against each other. Some folks think simply substituting lighter springs will make the gun function better. This is false logic. If the extra friction of the parts rubbing is not removed, light springs may result in unreliable ignition. A true action job will couple removing friction WITH lighter springs. And trust me, a tuned firearm is a pleasure to operate, whether you are competing with it or not.

You ask what specific parts are liable to wear? Study the exploded view in this link. Notice the parts labeled #92 and #93. These are the springs that provide an indexing effect on the lever and lifter arm. Remember what I said about harder parts wearing softer parts? Guess what. These springs are harder than the parts they bear against. The lever spring WILL wear a groove into the cam on the lever that it bears against. My guess is these are the parts your gunsmith was talking about when he said it would 'beat itself to death and develop malfunctions'.

http://www.vtigunparts.com/store/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=42&cat=Uberti+1873+Rifle

Will it beat itself to death in normal use? Probably not. Let's be clear about one thing. It is not how fast you operate a firearm that determines how much it will wear. We are not talking about internal combustion engines here where heat is a significant factor. Nobody runs a firearm fast enough to create much heat inside. Firearms parts wear out because they have been cycled many, many times. That's it. I know of one very young Cowboy Action shooter who in fact wore out an Uberti 1873 rifle because every night he was practicing with it. He practiced for hours every night in his bedroom, cycling the rifle over and over and over again. Many thousands of times. He wore out the rifle within a couple of years. Really wore it out and had to buy a new one. By the way, he was a national champion.

I doubt very much you will be cycling your rifle that much. But I say again, there is nothing like operating a rifle that has been properly tuned vs one right out of the box. It just feels nice. I went downstairs a little while ago and compared the action on my Uberti 1873 vs the real Winchester that was made in 1887. The old Winchester has had over 125 years for the parts to wear in, but in truth it probably sat in somebody's guns safe for most of that time. The Uberti was tuned by one of the top gunsmiths in the business. It operates like liquid gold. Yes, it is smoother and lighter to operate than the original. No, I am not a top competitor, but it is really nice to operate a rifle that runs smoothly and does not fight back.

If I wuz you, at the very least I would substitute the lever safety spring and the lever springs with aftermarket springs. These are the lever springs I recommend. They will not wear out the parts they bear against.

http://www.thesmithshop.com/springkits.html

By the same token, I absolutely would not put a short stroke kit into the rifle if I was just going to be shooting it at the range and plinking at tin cans with it. No need for that.
 
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