Wanting a Cimarron/Uberti SAA clone but have noticed something about them.

S

Stopsign32v

New member
I went to the local pawn shop and they had a used Uberti SAA. I looked at it and noticed when I went to half cock their was no noticeable click. What I mean is if you watch Hickock's video on one he explains the C-O-L-T clicks, aka 4 noticeable clicks. However this ones first click was completely gone. You could barely feel a notch in the hammer pull back. Is this normal? What would cause a Uberti SAA clone to not have a noticeable click or stop before half cock?
 
The Uberti mechanism is different from the old Colt, and IIRC their new system does not have a safety notch, so the old first click is gone. I wouldn't worry about it, as the "safety notch" is very unsafe and the whole thing was a silly advertising gimmick anyway - Colts were supposed to be superior because the hammer cocked with four clicks. So what? If there were 27 clicks, would that be even better?

Jim
 
Howdy

A picture is worth a thousand words dept.

Here is a photo of the internal parts of a Colt Single Action Army. The parts inside an Uberti will be similar. There are three cocking notches on the hammer of a Colt or Uberti. You can see them in this photo. The notch at the top is the so called 'safety cock' position. The notch the arrow is pointing to is the half cock position, and the notch all the way at the bottom is the full cock notch.

The 'four clicks' happen

1. When the hammer is pulled back to the 'safety cock' position.
2. When the hammer is pulled back to the half cock position.
3. When the bolt pops up against the cylinder (the bolt is the funny looking part with the hole through it)
4. When the hammer goes to full cock.

The other arrow is pointing to the sear, which is the upper tip of the trigger. The sear pops into each of the notches to hold the hammer back.

1. Notice the sear is very, very thin.
2. Notice the 'safety cock' notch and the half cock notch each have an over hanging lip over them.

When the sear pops into either the 'safety cock' notch or the half cock notch, it is trapped by the over hanging lip. You cannot pull the trigger unless you cock the hammer further.

However you can break off the overhanging lip or the sear by trying to pull the trigger very hard in the 'safety cock' or the half cock position.

Also, if somebody has done a crappy trigger job on the gun, the sear often does not pivot far enough to clear the over hanging lip of the half cock notch as the hammer falls. In this case, the over hanging lip will strike the sear as the hammer falls. Do it enough times and the over hanging lip will break right off.



interior%20parts%20with%20arrows%2002_zpssf95wtig.jpg



Is this normal?
Click to expand...

No.

However you are unclear in your description. You state there is no click at half cock, but you also state there is no noticeable click at the 'first click'. Which one is it? The first click is the so called 'safety cock' position, half cock is the second click.

Bottom line is, if you can pull the trigger and it releases the hammer from either of those two positions, the over hanging lip has probably broken off. If the over hanging lip is broken at the half cock position, put the gun down and walk away. The half cock position is the loading position, and unless the trigger is trapped and will not move it is dangerous to be loading the gun and rotating the cylinder without the trigger being trapped.

I keep calling the first click the so called 'Safety Cock' position because it is really not safe at all. Put the hammer at the first click with a live round under the hammer and drop it onto the hammer spur from a good height and the gun will probably fire. That is why you only load a revolver like this with five rounds and always keep the hammer down on an empty chamber. That notch is just too easy to break, and so is the sear.

When I examine a single action revolver with a Colt style action, if anything does not function properly I put it down and walk away.
 
Jim:

Every Uberti I have ever examined operates the way I just described. I have one in the safe that I can take photos of if you like. The major difference between an Uberti and a Colt is that some of the Ubertis have the D cam safety deal on the hammer, but they did away with that a long time ago. More recently Ubertis are shipped to this country with a two groove cylinder pin that serves as a safety, but the three notches are still on the hammer.

Very recently, like earlier this year Uberti introduced a new system with a firing pin that withdraws into the hammer, but I doubt if one would be in a pawn shop yet.

P.S. Uberti went to a coil spring for the hand a while back, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.
 
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Sorry what I meant was its first noticable click is at half cock. The first click, aka the safety notch as you put it, wasnt there. I could barely feel a stumble like feel in the hammer when it got there. But absolutely no click.

And Jim, Im buying the old model to be as close to exact as possible to an original SAA as possible. So, so what doesnt really make sense to me.


Driftwood so you are telling me the new old model Ubertis are no longer as close to original as before?
 
Howdy Again

Well, Uberti had already made some changes, such as a coil spring for the hand, and the aforementioned D cam hammer. I bought a used Uberti about ten years ago and it had the coil spring for the hand and the silly two position cylinder pin. The coil spring for the hand does not bother me, it is actually less likely to break than the original leaf type hand spring, and I removed the cylinder pin and replaced it with one from Belt Mountain,

You can see the newest design in this video. Scroll to about 2 minutes into the video. The Uberti guy calls it a transfer bar, but it is not the same type of transfer bar that Ruger uses. The firing pin is normally withdrawn inside the hammer. When the trigger is pulled, a spring loaded bar inside the hammer shoves the firing pin out so it can fire a cartridge.

I doubt if this design has made it here yet, but this seems to be the latest safety device that Uberti has designed into their single action revolvers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbnlwovDTw8
 
I bought the Uberti 7th cav model or whatever it was called, like ten years ago. It has the coil hand spring that works nicely, but is easy to lose if you're not paying attention. I quickly remembered that I'm not a fan of long barreled single actions. Sent the shooter and a 4.3/4" barrel to a gunsmith east of Bozeman. Anyway, besides putting the shorter barrel on, he ground off the excess metal on the cylinder pin so it looked like a normal SAA without blocking the hammer.
 
true to the originals
Click to expand...

Hardly

There were many engineering changes to the Colt SAA through out its production history, from 1873 to today. So how can any replica be true to the originals if the originals were a moving target?

Even now, no hardened metal insert in the recoil shield of an Uberti.



Uberti:

firingpinholeuberti.jpg




Colt:

coltrecoilplate.jpg



Not to mention D Cam hammers, coil springs for the hand, and two position cylinder pins.

True to the Originals is a relative term.
 
Hi, Driftwood,

Actually, I was referring to the Ubertis with the hammer safety plunger. That is the mechanism that moves the firing pin to the rest position when the trigger enters the safety notch. It works pretty well, but it is not fail safe; if the plunger rusts in place the hammer can be driven into the primer of a live round. Uberti now has a new system, as you note, but I have not seen a gun with it.

Of course, Colt, as an American company, is not subject to the import rules so does not have to have a drop safety. But it is in an attempt to stave off a change to the law that Colt describes their SAA as pretty much an antique, not to be used as a "real" gun. (Their manual is interesting in that area; a lot of what we used to call "tap dancing" around the safety issue.)

Jim
 
I have an Heritage (Pietta made) Rough Rider 357 mag 5.5“ SAA model 1873 and it makes 3 clicks. The positions are verv clear and audible. It has the safety bar. If the positions of the hammer are not very “feelable“ then something got into the leaf spring system or mechanism. I paintes my gun and some paint got into it and had to work the action lots to get work it rigth again.
 
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Driftwoood Johnson, regarding your pictures comparing the Colt's firing pin hole to the Uberti.

Check out the gouged out cylinder pin hole on the Colt compared to the Uberti!!!!

Damn, you might want to get that looked at! ;)
 
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