Cowboy Action

Took the Uberti "Winchester" '73, EMF New Dakota, Marv's Rossi '92 and his Uberti SAA to the range.

With "Cowboy Action" .45 Colt loads the '73 is rear recoiless.
It shoots to point of aim but...  hated buckhorns!  Off-hand I found myself doing a pilot induced oscillation left-right for some reason and it scattered my group.  I need to work on that.

I got a solid minute of bad-guy at 25 yards, and got 6 of 10 rounds nearly in the same hole at 7 yards.  Damn wagging left and right ruined a great group.

I discovered that you have to take care to make sure the rounds are past a detent in the magazine or the next round in the magazine is trying to join the round in the cartridge elevator.

The gate on the '73 is much nicer on the thumb than the '92, but that could be because Uberti deburrs things better than Rossi.

Speaking of Rossi...

Ugh.

We didn't have a single instance of loading it where the round at the gate didn't get stuck.  You could get it back out but you couldn't get the rim into the hole.  Once you did pull it out, it would generally feed into the magazine just fine.

Feed...

It did not want to feed Federal 158gr jacketed-soft-points.  They would present off the elevator and the bolt wouldn't push them in.  If you flicked them forward with your finger, they'd go right in, then you could close the bolt.  I theorize that it's a combination of not liking the flat nose and not being broken in.  The last five rounds Marv tried were feeding, but coarsely.

It liked the 110gr Winchester jacketed-hollow-point a lot better.

On the plus side, the rifle was grouping well at 12 and 7 yards for Marv and was feeling smoother and smoother as he levered more rounds.

His Uberti SAA in .357 gave zero problems and is a sweetie.  Marv was a bit taken aback by the recoil, but since an SAA flips vertical, it doesn't hit his delicate recoil adverse wrists very hard.




My SAA clone in .45 continues to delight!  My old eyes, one handed and 7 yards still gives a smaller than fist sized group where I want it.  The Captain Vulnerable anatomy target I was using had a well ventilated heart!

I have to confess to an oopsie.  I thumbed a round rather than cocked it.  Happily I was already pointing at the target when I did so, but the gun sure climbed with my grip that loose.  Marv asked if that was a ceiling shot, and I replied, "no, but it was close!"

Single actions you can fan and thumb have a bit of a learning curve and a heavy dose of "remember where you are".