Navy Arms SAA (Uberti)

[Green Frog]

Well here goes... I went to a Navy Arms Writers' event about 10 or so years ago and along with all of the other new stuff for that year, Val was showing off an interesting variant of the SAA clone he was having Uberti build for him. It was a tricked up version with Wolff™ springs replacing the stock ones and just a general slicking up of the action. The example he showed us was in 32-20, and AFAIK that was to be the only caliber for this special run of guns. I knew at the time I just had to have one, but other considerations arose and all of a sudden they had been discontinued. :oops:

Now comes my question, has anybody shot one of these extensively enough to know how they will hold up to heavy shooting. I know that Uberti still makes a version of it, and I assume I can get (or adapt) repair parts from them, but I'm wondering whether this will be necessary. I just picked up a like-new gun, with just a serial number and an assembly number on the frame, 32 WCF on the side of the barrel, and Navy Arms and the address plus Made in Italy on top of the barrel. The barrel and cylinder are nicely blued and the frame is color cased. :bigsmyl2:

I'm going to write to my buddy Val, but our mail interchanges tend to be very slow for some reason. Any first hand knowledge of this variant would be most appreciated and I would also like to hear how others of the "Cattleman" series of Uberti SAA revolvers have been holding up for you... accuracy-wise as well as durability-wise. As always, TIA! [smilie=s:

Froggie

[Wayne Smith]

Froggie, I don't shoot my Cattleman 44-40 nearly as often as I might. So far they have held up well, shooting BP and the MAV boolit. The 7.5" standard grip is very accurate. I can't hit anything with my 4.5" birds head grip, but that may be that the grip is not really comfortable in my hands.

That sounds like a nice pistol.

[Harry O]

I have a couple of standard 38-40 Uberti SAA's for CAS shooting. Well, they started out standard. They are not made for heavy use and I consider CAS shooting heavy use. I ended up having to replace the center cylinder pin with a Belt Mountain. The standard mainspring was too heavy. I replaced it with a lighter Wolff spring. The leaf trigger return/bolt spring broke. Replaced it with an aftermarket wire spring. After several years of use, the hammer notch wore on one of them (with premature firing). I had a gunsmith recut it and harden the notch. I don't consider this unreasonable considering the amount of shooting they have done.

[Bent Ramrod]

GF, never seen or heard of a coil spring SAA in .32-20 from Uberti or Navy Arms.

I have a standard flat spring Cattleman imported by Cimmarron with 7-1/2" barrel in .32-20 and it's one of my favorite revolvers. They give you enough front sight to file to bring the POI to wherever range you want and mine only required a tiny tightening of the barrel to bring the windage over the sight with the loads I shoot. There was only a minor leftward impact before I did that, much less than the other SAA clones I have fired. The thing shoots like a rifle out to 50 yards or more, and I have gotten under 2" at 25 yards with it offhand.

I don't imagine the action is as slick as it could be if someone went over it, and I have no idea of the durability since I don't compete with it in speed events. But it is certainly good enough for my purposes. I took a little off the rear of the cylinder base pin because this version is the blackpowder type frame with the set screw rather than the later spring loaded crosspin version and the screw was pushing the base pin/safety slightly to the rear when fully tightened, raising the hammer a little even in the "fire" position. Left loose, it didn't seem to unscrew on firing and held the cylinder in, but I wanted to be able to tighten it completely. It probably works fine as is with the crosspin, which doesn't push the base pin inwards like the set screw does.

Hope this helps. What you describe sounds like the "cowboy competition" model; maybe Navy just didn't see enough market for it.