Beware Lead-Shaver Revolvers - Bad Cylinder Timing

[Linstrum]

I bought my Uberti replica 1858 Remington .44 in 1994 and when I got it out of the box I checked it out and found the cylinder timing was off by about 0.020" from lining up with the bore. I immediately sent it back but the dealer returned it to me saying that their gunsmith test fired it and found it was "accurate enough" - yeah, right, this was a supposed target model with adjustable sights that cost another $20 over a standard revolver. Case closed, no recourse left to take care of a piece of cruddy workmanship unless I went into overtime with phone calls and letter writing for a year like Buckshot did with his replica rifle with a barrel rifled with a horse rasp driven through it with a sledge hammer.

I'm sure my replica revolver is not the only one with an out of time cylinder, so if you want to buy one check it out first before plunking down your hard-earned cash for something that won't work like it was designed. A new cylinder fixed it, but it cost like you wouldn't believe.

In the photo, the reason why my revolver isn't sitting square is because I had to turn the camera so the flash wouldn't make a shadow in the hammer cut-out in the frame, although there is still a bit of shadow. You can see that the nipple is offset from center by about 0.020". The nipple is down below the writing in the photo.

rl646

[jh45gun]

What company sold it? I would raise hell and I would also contact Uberti. My Cattleman is timed perfect.

[Bret4207]

If you want satisfaction the next move is up to you. I'm not much for yelling at people but sometimes the irate, half crazy customer routine is needed.

[725]

Tell us more about the vendor, support offered or denied, attempts to get proper satisfaction and results. It would help the unsuspecting who may be about to buy one of those things. Warn the market and as a good gesture, also advise the company about such notifications. A world wide web can reach alot of customers and surely affect sales. It's one thing to take a substandard finished product and make it work, and another to get what you paid for. This kind of info should go out as wide as possible and the vendor should be right there in the middle of it. They had an oppotunity to make it right and just tossed it right back in your lap to fix. If that's the reputation they seek, give it to 'em as loud as possible.

[jh45gun]

While Uberti should not have sent that out and they are to blame I would be more upset with the importing company that sold it. Lots of different companies hadnde them Cimmeron, Taylors & Co. Buffalo Arms, and others.

[leftiye]

Pay 'em with yer credit card, and stop payment if they don't give you an honest shake, then ask them if they can help you out. Seems like a lot of these Eyetalian gun cos. must be affiliated with them there Corleones.

[jh45gun]

For what it is worth most Italian Clones have a good Rep Especially Uberti.

[machinisttx]

I see no proof that the chamber is out of time with the barrel. Not saying it isn't, but have you checked it with an alignment rod or some other similar means? The nipple and nipple hole are obviously off, but since the front and back can't be machined at the same time(at least in any machine I know of), it's possible that one is off and the other isn't.

I would still insist that the manufacturer replace it.

[Linstrum]

Hi, machinisttx, with the original cylinder in the gun it shaves a slice of lead off the side of the projectile even though it does have a forcing cone, which is pretty good primary proof of being out of time on cylinder lock-up. Using a bore light to look down the barrel into the cylinder it can also be seen that the cylinder bores are out of time, but taking a photograph down the bore is rather difficult so I elected to take a photo of the nipple instead since that also shows the misalignment just as well. Using a 7/16" drill blank to check alignment also shows the cylinder being out-of-time, the drill blank is a loose fit in both the barrel and cylinder, but with the cylinder in the gun the drill blank will not pass from the barrel into the cylinder because of the mis-alignment. The machining problem isn't with the cylinder bores and nipple holes, the locking detent cuts in the side of the cylinder are what is off and I have thought about brazing them in with low melting point high strength Eutectic 16 brazing rod and then re-machining the cylinder detents myself using my dividing head to index it in my milling machine. I don't know the exact cause of the original indexing being off, but taking a guess I'd say that it was probably from a chip getting into the alignment jig used at the factory since chips getting into things is a pretty common problem.

Like I said in my original post, I bought the gun back in 1994. The manufacturer is Uberti, the importer/distributor was Traditions, and the vendor was Bass Pro. I sent one letter to Bass Pro and two to Traditions and got the song and dance routine that quality control at the Uberti factory is great and I was mistaken about the alignment being off. Digital cameras were not common back 15 years ago so I didn't have a good way to send proof to Traditions that there was a problem and that I was not just seeing things. Traditions did concede to testing the gun and when I got it back the note from the person who tested it said it was okay. The gun had been fired, so the whoever looked at it wasn't telling a complete fib, but with the original cylinder in the gun the shots go off to the right and down about FOUR FEET from point of aim at 25 yards, so for sure it was not fired at a target. The problem was completely solved by buying a replacement cylinder for it and now the revolver shoots with surprising accuracy. I am happy with it, but I still have a bum cylinder sitting in a drawer that I will repair some day when I have the time.

Thanks for the encouragement and advice. After 15 years I am not going to persue the matter, my bringing it up was not to bitch and complain about getting shafted with a piece of junk, I made the post to warn others to check out revolvers for cylinder alignment before buying them. I have another replica 1858 Remington .44 made in the late 1970s that I bought last fall. It shoots well and is nicely made, but by another but unknown Italian manufacturer.


rl647

[Char-Gar]

I have had Uberti revolvers purchased from importers like Cimmaron that were a good value for the dollar. I purchased a replica 1851 C&B revolver directly from Uberti that was a total piece of junk with great grouges in the barrel. The internal parts were very crude. Two trips back never produced any satisfaction.

I agree with with others that the importer should be the guy that gets the heat. You pay more for guns marked by the top importers, but you also get much better quality control and customer service.

[geargnasher]

I have an Uberti Cimarron Bisely and it seems fairly ok on timing (doesn't spit lead, but hasn't been checked with a gauge, either) and my only complaint other than fairly miserable accuracy and a .0015" restriction at the front sight and the cylinder pin keeps falling out and is beat to hell by now. I'm gonna take it back to Cimmaron Arms in Fredericksburg (onlyh 25 miles away) and ask them what they're going to do about it. If I wanted this kind of crap I would have saved $2-300 and bought a cheap gun. My dad has an Uberti Henry .45 Colt rifle with brass receiver and it is a gem, slick as a whistle, accurate, and pretty well finished. Not bad for $1450.00. (Cough, cough!). It had better be.

I'll keep in mind the timing thing next revolver I buy. I'm starting to put together a canvas bag of test goodies for the next revolver I buy. So far contents are: Soft lead sinkers about the calibers of guns I may purchase, selection of 6" sections of hardwood dowels of various diameters including 2" pieces for checking forcing cone restriction by short-slugging from the muzzle, 0-1" Micrometer, gun oil, clean rags, cleaning rod, jags, and patches, copper solvent, hole gauge set.

Planning on buying and adding forcing cone gauges and timing gauges for each caliber I shoot. I figure the money I save in gunsmithing fees, time, and frustration will more than pay for a few extra tools I should have on hand anyway for the next revolver I buy.

If the seller doesn't like it, I can buy from someone else.
Gear

[Linstrum]

I got stung with this revolver because I trusted Uberti and Bass Pro since at the time in 1994 they had good reputations. As a result I paid the price for buying a mail order catalog "pig in a poke". If I had had a chance to inspect it first there is no way I would have accepted it.

I try to do like geargnasher and be prepared with some tools and/or inspection equipment before buying something, darned good idea.

Like Chargar said, the importer should be the one to take the guff when something they import doesn't do its job since they are the one who is acting as go-between for the end-user and manufacturer. Manufacturers won't pay attention to one customer but they will pay attention to the business that buys and distributes their merchandise.

In the last ten years the good old American ideal of an American business standing by its customers has gone completely out the window and it has been replaced with "screw you, go someplace else if you don't like the piece of worthless dung you just bought from us, there are plenty more stupid suckers out there and we won't go out of business just because we cheated you". That was the attitude in this country 100 years ago and what specifically prompted the Muck Raker movement in this country to take on both corrupt Big Business and a corrupt Congress to do something about bringing morality back into the marketplace. Upton Sinclair wrote a fantastic book called The Jungle, which was about the food industry in the Unites States 100 years ago, and it got the Pure Food and Drug Laws passed to protect us from mass food poisoning and worthless or obviously poisonous medicines. It looks like the pendulum has swung fully back to the point where Muck Rakers are once again needed to bring business morals back in line with what they should be, although it is never Government's job to legislate morality, that job is strictly the responsibility of the stable family unit and Government's job is to only provide the environment where stable families can exist easily and without penalty - that environment currently does not exist and Obama is not going in that direction! The U.S. automakers didn't heed the warning and it is probably already too late for The Big Three to repair the damage they did to themselves by selling junk cars that don't leave the factory right to begin with. I got burned buying a U.S. made vehicle and I will not buy another until they get their act back together like they did when the fabulous small block V8 Chevies, Mopars, and Fords were kings of the road and would last 250,000 miles if taken care of, not the current crop of rubber timing belt engine cars that self-destruct long before their life should be up and are specifically designed so they cannot be repaired by the owner. I have a U.S. made Caterpillar D4D bulldozer that I can work on myself, with about 10,000 hours on the engine and it is not even close to needing an overhaul because it was designed right, and there is no reason why cars can't be made to the same standards like they used to be. It doesn't cost any more to make something right than it does to make something wrong!

Didn't mean to get off on cars, but they are a darned good example of what America used to do years ago when businesses voluntarily behaved in a moral manner and stood by what they sell. I know a lot has been said about the children of the Hippies, and that age group is who I personally hold responsible for the terrible mess this country is in. I am of the Beatnik-Hippie Era but I sure didn't raise a bunch of ME FIRST, SCREW YOU ilk totally lacking in morals and decency. It is the old Beatnik-Hippie Era free-love and no responsibility people epitomized by individuals like murderer Ted Kennedy, Alan Ginsburg, Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden, Michael Moore, Carl Reiner and his son Rob "Meathead" Reiner, Al Franken, Mike Farrel, etc, who raised or are the current crop of misfits who have bastardized the country, not the mainstream American people of the same age groups represented by morally decent individuals like the late Dan Blocker's kids, Mike Reagan, John Milius, Tom Sellek, etc.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox, back to revolvers.


rl650

[Bret4207]

D47U owner here too, I share your joy.

Putting Gov't in the mix of legislating business morality is what got us here in the first place. The market is the best way to fix the issue. When the US automakers started producing junk in the mid 70's America went to Japan for quality cars. The market pushed the US companies into compliance. The same attitude of "buy our junk, it's American Union made!" is why Chrysler and GM are now controlled by the Gov't. Until we let the market run it's course no amount of fiddling by Gov't will fix things.