First Outing with the 73 Winny

[SharpsShooter]

After playing catchup for several weeks, I finally made it to the range to shoot a couple new toys accumulated over the winter trading sessions. I had picked up a Uberti 73 Winny clone with very nice case color, a 24" barrel and respectable wood too.
On arrival, I unpacked the 73 and stuffed 8-9 up the tube flicked the lever and...uh-oh...a tiny bit long to feed properly...........sigh...........ok unload backwards through the loading gate, except for 2 that fed perfectly. In three shots I was sight adjusted on the turkey swinger at 75 yards (they shoot pistol silly-wet there too) , then loading singles it seemed to shoot where I looked and I could hit any of the swingers out to 125 yards on demand. That Swiss load is impressive. I put 5 across the chrony and got 1298, 1300, 1291, 1296 and 1300 ft / sec. That is a single digit extreme spread of 9 ft-sec. Pity that powder is so expensive. The next loads get seated .020 deeper and we will be rocking.

The load was 35gr of Swiss 1.5f, 260gr Keith SWC cast of 40:1, shot as cast diameter of .455 but lubed with NASA. The NASA left a decent lube star and after 40 shots it was still hitting the 3' gongs at 125 (8 for 10) so I do not think it was fouling too badly.

This thing is addictive.

SS


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[NickSS]

Looks like a nice rifle and it seams to shoot well too. I have been eying one of them at my local store for several weeks now and have lust in my hart for one just like yours. They only thing that is preventing me right now is the cash. Oh well maybe in a month or two I will have enough put by.

[cajun shooter]

The 73 and it's brother models all have a built in case length guage. Just flip the rifle upside down and move the lever just enough so that the brass carrier moves upward. Now lay your round with the nose to the front and see if it fits. If it is too long and will not go into this space then it will not cycle through the rifle and needs to be shorter. Most feed ammo that is 1.57 or so in length in the 44-40. If you plan to use the 1873 in SASS matches then it will be best to use the 20 inch or shorter barrel. The design of the 73 makes it a heavy rifle because the brass carrier and frame are bigger since it has no ejector and uses the carrier for that purpose. The 24 inch model is very close to 9 pounds unloaded. I shoot the Texas Brush Popper with the 18 1/2 barrel and it does great.