I picked up these two 2003-4 made Ubertis after I decided I needed to shift gears and try to learn something about the caplock revolvers. I already had a navy that I had completed from a run that had apparently been rejected and sold for scratch by one of the importers. It had the grip shape peculiar to Piettas but no markings of any kind. I got it working after replacing some of the brittle and ill-fitting parts that I had come to expect with Italian replicas.
The two above clued me in that Uberti- once just the best of a bad lot, had gotten very serious about percussion revolvers. I ordered spare parts from VTI gunparts and Cimarron Arms and they actually CAME. Just as amazing, I haven't had to use any of them.
Both have light trigger pulls and perfectly timed actions. The Remington was quickly sighted in by drifting the front sight and then filing it down for the correct elevation. The Colt Army need slight elevation and windage adjustment that I accomplished by working on the hammer/rear sight. Bench groups would suggest that this is the more accurate the two but both shoot fine enough groups that I really can't be sure.
The Colt-type had a loose loading lever retainer. I fixed this by tightening the dovetail with a brass punch. I also had to stake in the little guide pins in the front of the frame to keep them from falling out during disassembly.
I find that I like these johnny-come-lately designs more than I thought I would. I was kind of stuck on the earlier designs because they got to go through more history than these- the Army came out in 1860 and the Remington evolved to the current form from 60-63. Still, after they got that war out of the way, there was still plenty of civilian history to be made with these. There were still Bison on the plains and the trans-continental rail road was still a few years away. The Remington stayed in production until 1875 and the Colt was popular enough that JW. Hardin had one on him when the rangers caught up to him in 1879.
