New to me Charter Arms Undercover

[Lefty Red]

I don't know why Charter keeps shipping the Undercover with those giant grips. Surely they are aware that most people buy them for concealed carry? The old wooden Bulldog grip was an excellent compromise between comfort and concealment, I have a pair somewhere. They fetch surprisingly high prices on Fleabay.

Yes they do!!!
For $10 more you get a cool set from Altamount!


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[Texas by God]

I'd love to have a 70's vintage .44 Bulldog. They were well built and accurate enough.

[FergusonTO35]

Update on the Undercover. The seller contacted me and said that even with the new part it still wasn't working well. He offered to instead sell me another Undercover he had in stock for $100.00 free shipping. So yeah, bring it on I told him. He sent me some pics of it. Overall it looks about the same except it has Stratford instead of Bridgeport on the barrel and the serial number is 3491xx so it is a lot newer than the first one which was 160xx. The delay sucks but the seller seems to be really trying to make me happy so it's all good.

[FergusonTO35]

The Undercover showed up at the fun store yesterday and I picked it up. I'm glad that he didn't sell me the first one. This Undercover must have been fired very little, the action is quite tight and there is only a ghost of a turn ring on the cylinder. The finish has a fair amount of wear and surface rust, I would surmise this Undercover was somebody's glove box or fishing gun for a long time. Very happy with it for $125.00 total, pics and range report coming soon.

[35remington]

Interested in how it turns out. Low budget but serviceable guns have always attracted me.

[FergusonTO35]

I have put around 100 rounds through the Undercover so far. Elevation seems dead on with 146 and 154 grain wadcutters. My groups are impacting to the left about two inches at five yards. Not sure if that's me or the gun right now. It fires Federal primers 100% no big surprise there, however I had a lot of light strikes with CCI from a lot that my other revolvers eat just fine. Not sure if it is a weak mainspring or even just how tight the action is, as mentioned before I really don't think it was fired more than a couple of times before I got it. I subbed in a different hammer spring from my gun junkyard, we shall see if that changes anything. Anybody know if a coil hammer spring for an S&W J frame will work in the Charter?

[Lefty Red]

I do not have good luck with CCI small pistol primers. Ever since the scare and hoarding era, I have kept away from them.

My UC liked the heavier bullets too. The 110gr +p loads I carry on it shoot about an inch low at 5 yards.


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[35remington]

Remington 1 1/2s are your friend if you have light hammer strikes failing spring replacement needs.

[FergusonTO35]

Interesting, I have always found R-P to be the hardest of SP primers. I fired the Undercover some more today with the new/used hammer spring and same CCI primed load. This time, it fired in single action 100%, still had a few light strikes double action. My Rossi 461 set the hard rounds off no problem. I do think the shooting to left is the gun, not me. Switching to the Rossi, my groups immediately returned to center. Examining the Undercover, I do believe the front sight is canted slightly to the right, which would certainly cause it to shoot left. It is so slight that I think turning the barrel in slightly will correct it.

Still not bad for a $100.00 gun, if I wanted a new gun with a warranty I would have bought one. I'm going to see if I can fix the light strikes problem, then probably send it to Charter for the barrel issue.

[Lefty Red]

CA will fix it! The weapon is covered percent!


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[rintinglen]

A washer under the Main spring will clear up your light hammer strike issue at the cost of an increase in trigger pull.

[35remington]

Not the 1 1/2. It is the softest small primer extant. You may be thinking of another Remington primer.

In any event a spring is probably the best fix.

[Tom W.]

My hunting buddy had the .44 and wouldn't part with it for any reason. I bought an UC way back in the '70's for my first wife. It was accurate and easy to shoot. One night she left it in her car and someone tried to steal the car. The car wasn't working, so he rooted around and found the revolver. The police caught him that night about two miles from the house. They kept the revolver for a long time after the trial. When we finally got it back there was something wrong with it. I sent it back to Charter but something still felt amiss. A boy offered me a very decent price for it and even knowing about reason I wasn't happy with it he bought it. Another with a low price would put one in my glovebox. Someone mentioned a Glock 27. That happened to be the first Glock I ever fired. Five shots from that and I dropped the magazine, emptied the chamber and gave it back to the man that owned it. He laughed and said that's what it did to him, too. It was worse than full power .44mag loads. A week later and he sold it.

[Thin Man]

I have fired several of the Undercover revolvers with standard grips and have found the Tyler T-grip inserts to be the most satisfactory solution to making the grip easier to hold and manage without increasing their bulk. The T-grips are still in production my the inventor's (Melvin Tyler) son, can be found on the net.

I have enjoyed owning and shooting the Charter Arms revolvers for quite a few years. In the early Fall of 1973 SWMBO and I were on an extended vacation through the New England area and found ourselves at the Charter Arms factory. The staff welcomed us in for a visit and introduced us to their new product chambered in 44 Special, 3 inch barrel and oversize wooden grips. I fell in love with the size and caliber and talked about it for the rest of the trip. About 3 months passed before Christmas when I found one of these under the tree from SWMBO. That happened almost 44 years ago and both she and the Charter are still with me!

While at the CA factory they told us about their development of this firearm. Their original test model was chambered in 357 Magnum. Before they will consider mass production of any firearm they test fire their prototype in a strong "safety" box. This box is reinforced so if the product detonates it will generate injuries only to the shooter's hand. Their shooter shoved his hand with the loaded revolver in the box and fired one shot. The recoil was so pronounced it struck his forearm sharply on the top of the box's window opening where he inserted the firearm. He withdrew the revolver and flatly refused to fire any more rounds through it in the box. Then the engineers came forward with the 44 Special chambering. The recoil from this caliber was more manageable (with routine factory RN loads) and the rest is history.

[OBXPilgrim]

Thin Man, thanks for sharing your story. Very interesting.

[FergusonTO35]

A washer under the Main spring will clear up your light hammer strike issue at the cost of an increase in trigger pull.

Cool, thanks for the tip! I'm thinking there may be some debris or minor corrosion inside the mechanism that is causing the light strikes. Shooting should cause it to work it's way out.

[HATCH]

I picked up a CA PITBULL. Its a 40 cal 5 shot revolvers. Its snappy.
I had to send it back to CA twice for them to get it right though....
When I got it, it would shoot my cast reloads fine but had a issue with the cylinder/yoke.
They replaced the parts and sent it back. I couldn't fit my reloads in 3 of the 5 cylinders. So back it went.
This time they kept it longer and when I got it back everything was right.

Its not a bad pistol but it does have some MAJOR recoil. I own a glock 27 and its worst then it.
I like it though because you don't need moon clips and it is 40 cal. I have over 25K pieces of 40 cal once fired so its gonna be around a while.
I got so much 40 cal that its on the FIRE AND FORGET status. I don't load the cases I shoot.

[FergusonTO35]

What loads are you shooting in your Pit Bull? I would think that you could load something like a 180 grain slug at 750 fps and it wouldn't be bad at all.

[HATCH]

I shoot the standard loads.
172 cast HP or 180 standard
5.2 unique

its what I shoot in my Glocks, my UMP 40 rifle, and my Ruger P pistol

I don't do low power options.

I do do a 105 grain WC 38sp load that is ZERO recoil and same POI as standard 38 sp loads

[FergusonTO35]

I like to squirt the Lee 401-175-TC at 900 fps out of my Glock 22. The .40 is totally not enjoyable with most factory ammo, I wouldn't own one if I didn't reload.