Pietta New Sheriff 3.5 inch review

[Love Life]

I’ve been hankering for a short barrel single action for awhile. Browsing the internet I came across the New Sheriff made by Pietta for Cimarron. Uberti also makes one, but Uberti has that stupid safety set up now. I ordered one (Pietta) in 45 colt. This is my pre firing review

Finish: It has a dark blue, almost black. However it is nice and even. It is not a high polish blue. There are no blemishes in the bluing. The color case hardening is nicely done. It is not bone charcoal, but a salt bath case hardening. It has nice colors and is not garish. There is a small blem on the front of the cylinder frame.

Machining: The exterior is nicely done with no machining marks. The interior is nicely done with minor machining marks.

Small parts: The small parts are nicely done and finished. Everything fits as it should.

Grips: One piece walnut. There is some overhang of the grips on the backstrap and the bottom of the grip frame. I’m debating on whether I’ll strip, properly fit, and refinish them or if I’ll just make a set. I have some really nice walnut that’ll look good on there.

The action: it’s actually pretty light and comes with a thinner, tapered mainspring. The hammer is dragging on the left side.

Timing: Timing is pretty dang good!! Barrel cylinder gap is .009.

Chamber throats all measured a nice .4525 using a ball gauge.

Issues: when I took the gun out of the box and cocked the hammer, the action felt like it was full of sand. A complete disassembly showed that it was actually full of sand(grit)!! I literally hosed the frame off in the sink and the small parts to get all of stuff out. The screw holes threads looked like they were packed with red polishing rouge. After a light oiling I put it back together and it was much better.

Overall not many complaints. I’ll see how it shoots later this month. I’ve wanted a short barreled single action for woods bumming and of it shoots well, the. I’ll be happy. For the money I’m satisfied so far. It’s not a Colt, but it’s also not $1,800.

And Epstein didn’t kill himself.

[Beerd]

ya better post a picture :wink:

[Love Life]

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3.5 inch barrel with plow handle grip.

I’ll take more pictures tomorrow. It’s a cute little fella, lol. I’ll feed it a steady diet of 250 gr HB RNFP bullets over 8.5 gr of unique or 32 gr of Goex OE 2f.

[Thin Man]

That is a very fine looking SA. It brings back memories of the Old West "belly gun" concept. That one should bring you a lot of fun.

Your photo reminded me of a practical joke I pulled on a friend about 6 years ago. He had borrowed one of my SA style 45 revolvers for cowboy action shooting and had it about 2 years. When I asked about getting it back from him he stammered and said there was damage to it, then finally handed it over to me. The fire pin was broken off and the cylinder's center pin was missing! All I could say was "Wow" and he started making offers to give me his short barrel 45 (that he had only recently bought) to replace mine. I insisted that I had to have my original pistol back and would take his as compensation, but since his was new I would give him $100 for the trade off. He refused the offer, but I took both my and his 45 and left a $100 bill on the counter for him. I replaced both the hammer nose and center pin in my pistol and waited about a year before telling him I had done this. I then told him I had too many 45 revolvers and had one to sell. With this comment I laid his short barrel 45 on the table and said if he knew anyone who needed one like this it was available for $100, cash sale. He almost ripped the patch off his jeans getting the wallet out and paid in full for the (his) revolver. Now we were both satisfied. I had my original 45 back (plus my costs for repair parts) and he had his 45 back at it's original cost. He offered to pay for the parts I had to replace on my pistol. I refused his offer. We had been good friends too long for me to take his money. We both got a good laugh out of this event when I told him this event was all a practical joke on him. I let him do without his 45 for a year as punishment for not telling me there was a problem with my pistol. What I did want was for him to at least let me know that I had a repair project waiting. We were close friends until he passed 2 years ago. Still miss him badly and always will.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

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Here's mine, purchased in July, 2015. At the time it was labelled as "The Improved Sheriff." I think that was because the original Colt Sheriff's Model did not have an ejector rod housing. This one is functional, but on mine anyway one still has to pick the empty cases out the last 1/4th inch or so with their fingers. Still, better than a pencil. So here is my limited experience. I fired it at 15 yds. off hand, right handed only. Two widely spaced holes appeared on the bullseye target. The load was 8.0 gr. of Unique under a 250 gr. CLRNFP. The recoil seemed excessive, and the revolver was trying to twist in my grip. I felt like a steady diet of this load would be detrimental to the revolver in the long run, and I was unable todetermine where the other 4 rounds had gone. I returned to the range a couple of weeks later with some rounds loaded with 7.0 gr. of Unique under the same boolit. Again, 15 yds., one handed. All six shots on the target with 4 in the bull and 2 just below in the 9 ring. After the first shot I could tell that the gun was shooting a bit low, so I aimed at the top of the 8 ring and was pleased to get into the 10 ring. At that point I decided that 7.0 gr. of Unique was good enough, and I could file down the front sight a bit if I wished to achieve a permanent zero with that load (but I never did!). My impression is that, like you said, it is a well made and attractive revolver, but I like the 4 3/4 inch barrel length better. The shorter barrel length (cute!) isn't worth the trade off on complete ejection. My experience, for what it's worth. Yes, I still have it.

[onelight]

Thanks for the informative review and picture , great job!

[Love Life]

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Here is the other side with part of my stash of grip blanks, lol. It’s hard to choose what I want to go with. I’ve got desert ironwood, maple, Claro walnut, American walnut, and Bastogne walnut.

Decisions, decisions...

[Love Life]

Well, I finally got to shoot it today and boy was it fun!! I couldn’t stop shooting it and fired 100 rds.

Shooting the Remington concave base 255 gr boolit lubed over 8.3 gr unique with BLL, the gun held a respectable 3 inches at 25 yards, and 7 inches at 50 yards. Cases were starline.

I also shot the NEI RNFP HB cast of 20:1 using the same load, and had almost identical results. Overall very useful accuracy. The only problem is it shoots 4 inches low at 7 yards and 9 inches low at 25 yards. I plan to file the sights as all my other guns are dialed for this load.

I had really sooty cases, and I am going to try loads with bullseye to see if that cleans things up. If I get a bullseye load that shoots accurately in all of my guns and to same POI then I’ll switch. If not then I’ll just stick with unique and live with it, lol.

Overall it is just a fun gun.

Family photo:
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[Love Life]

Cleaned it up with some kroil. 1 kroil patch followed by a dry patch and the chambers and bore look like mirrors. A wipe down of sperm oil on the case coloring and bluing and all is right with the world. The timing is exceptional. Looking at the cylinder notches you can’t even tell it was turned and/or fired.