Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Recent Uberti Caplock Revolvers

Historically, shooting the replica cap and ball revolvers has presented a number of challenges to the enthusiast. Overall, poor quality, brittle parts and lack of customer service and spare parts have driven a number of potential shooters away from the game.

In the past couple of years a sea -change has taken place and the caplock revolver field may well be positioned to attract a significant number of shooters. One factor may stem from the purchase of Uberti by the owners of Beretta. Since that occured, the revolvers had displayed a consistent improvement in action integrity, smoothness and timing. The cylinder/ bore measurements are optimized for accuracy and the lockwork parts are heat treated for much better service life.

During the last half of the twentieth century, the replica revolver shooter could expect to break a trigger/ bolt spring on the first trip to the range with other poorly heat treated parts following in short order. While a number of mail order concerns advertised spares, the frequent outcome of an order was was a big zero with the notation "not available" or "out of stock." Customer support from the manufacturers and importers was not available.

The purchaser of one of the replica Colts or the Remington had to find out the negatives for himself. They were conspicuously absent from the literature. The various magazine articles and Digest type books were all written under the thumb of the industry and the first order of business was to sell merchandise.

In the past couple of years, responsible importers have begun offering in-house repair services and comprehensive stocks of spare parts orderable by telephone or by internet shopping cart. Not only can the shooter keep his Navy or Army Colt working with generic Single Action parts, but he can branch out into the Walkers, Dragoons and Pocket models with good assurance that high quality spare springs, hands and bolts are only a phone call or mouse click away. The most reliable sources at this time are VTI GunParts and Cimarron Arms Company.

Decades of experience had soured me on the Italian replica revolvers and I much preferred shooting the available quality single shots. Nevertheless, wanting to explore the material history of the caplock period, I picked up a couple of revolvers from a local retailer. These were the fluted cylinder variation of the Colt 1860 Army and a copy of the 1858 Remington in its fully developed 1862 configuration. These were very well finished and had smooth light actions. The Remington had an extra tall front sight- driftable for windage and could be easily sighted to hit point of aim. The Colt also shot close and was regulated with a bit of file work.

Right after the initial purchase, I laid in test parts orders from VTI and Cimarron. Those orders were routinely filled as were subsequent orders of parts for the Colt Pocket Model and Dragoon. Zeroed out components were rare and, as I recall, limited to the hand springs. Hand assemblies with spring included were easy to obtain.

After a few months shooting these Ubertis, my historic reservations about them have moderated considerably. I've come to enjoy them as much or more than the very accurate single loaders from Lyman and Pedersoli. I shoot them with loads as close to the traditional as possible and in the manner of use common when the designs were state of the art.


While I've laid in spare parts kits for all of my revolvers, I've not had a single broken spring or lock work part with one of the new production Ubertis. I have had to attend to relatively minor glitches such as a loose loading lever/ barrel detent on the army and the tendency of the frame/barrel locater pins to fall out of the front of the frame during cleaning.

My Wells Fargo pocket model needed some additional clearance in the standing breach to adequately cycle spent caps. In order to gain experience, I fitted a new bolt and hand to the Wells Fargo and found that I had actually produced a smoother action than the revolver displayes straight from the box.



Accuracy from the larger revolvers- The Army, The Remington and a Uberti Dragoon rivals and sometimes exceeds that of modern revolvers.




I've used the Uberti replicas to explore a variety of loads, the performance of various ball diameters and traditional bullet designs and the various replica powders now available. They provide an interesting window to the material culture of a bygone age.

The Uberti Replicas are available from Uberti USA, Dixie Gunworks (providing very fast delivery- often overnight), Cimarron Arms Company.

.31 Pocket model
50 Grain Ball 12.5 FFFG 720 fps 51 spread fps

The pocket model has about the same bullet energy as the small NAA .22 mini revolvers and the old Smith #1 of 1857

.36 Navy
Load Velocity Spread
21 Gr FFFG 80 grain .375 Ball 1020 5
21 Grain/Volume Pyrodex P 80 gr ball 1092 69
21 Gr/vol American Pioneer 80 gr ball 639 113
21 Gr/vol Hodgdons 777 80 gr ball 1070 296
21 Gr /Vol Pyrodex P 110 Grain Bullet 902 129

The 80 grain ball traveling at 1020 fps produces 185 foot pounds of muzzle energy. This is identical to the measured energy of the 148 grain .38 Special Wadcutter target load. The .36 was regarded as a very deadly manstopper in it's day with Hickock piling up one shot stops to rival anything reported by marshall/Sanow.

.44 Walker Colt
Velocity
55 FFFG 1001 54
60 Pyrodex P 1221 44
60 A Pioneer 974 80
Contrary to many reports, the Walker cylinder will accomodate only 55 grains of fffg while leaving enough room to seat a ball. The volumn equivalent of 60 pyrodex P can be used because Pyrodex compresses more than black powder. Some shooters have recorded velocities in excess of 1200 fps with FFFG but, in this case, only Pyrodex P arrived at that velocity. At that velocity level, the Walker loaded with 140 grain ball produces a muzzle energy of 464 ft pounds. This exceeds the nominal energy of the traditional .45 Colt load by only 44 fps. and would loose out to the more efficient Colt bullet a short distance down range. While the Walker is a powerful handgun, characterizing it as the Black Powder Magnum!!! is a bit hyperbolic.

Remington New Model Army
35 Grains FFFG .454 855 37
30 Grain FFFG .454 795 31
30 Grain Pyrodex P 966 54
30 Grain FFFG Lee
200 Grain Bullet 764 41

The Remington and Colt .44 Army models produced energies that ranged from the traditional loading of the .38 Special Round Nose into the range of the .38 Special High Speed popular in the 1930s.

The Uberti Revolvers and the companies that handle them occupy the alpha position in the industry. Armi San Marco recently colapsed under the weight of their own indifference to quality assurance. Another Gardonne Valley Arms Maker- Pietta, offers no customer support and a lackadaisical approach to the spare parts issue. Palmetto arms makes some interesting replicas but information about after-purchase support and spare parts are nowhere to be found.

The Uberti Replicas are available from Uberti USA, Dixie Gunworks (providing very fast delivery- often overnight), Cimarron Arms Company.