New Toy, Uberti 73 SHort Rifle

[veeman]

Just got this home today, a Uberti Short Rifle in 38/40! Got a couple boxes of BP loaded up, ready for a warm enough shooting day.

[4t5]

That looks great.

[Ysabel Kid]

Very nice! Looking forward to the range report!

[OldWin]

That looks really nice. And you definitely got the right chambering.

[JBowen]

That looks really nice! I hope it shoots good for you.

JBowen

[Griff]

Is that the 20" bbl.? I know several cowboy action shooters that use 'em. The most popular chamberings are .38/357, .45 Colt, .44WCF and probably the least seen is the 38.WCF. I have the Taylor's Comanchero, an 18-½" half round/octagon bbl in 45 Colt. It's near as light as the carbine, but I love the longer stock and lack of barrel bands. The octagon rear half of the bbl. seems to help shift the weight rearward, stabilizing the action, without the weight of the full octagon pulling the muzzle downward. Which is great for a target rifle, but not so much in an action game like cowboy action. Although some folks seem to overcome that...

[Lastmohecken]

Nice looking rifle, I really like those Uberti short rifles. I have one in .357 Mag.

[RIHMFIRE]

you're gonna like that 38-40!

[EdinCT]

That would tempt me bad! I have never shot a 1873 but they are a thing of beauty. I recommend the book 50 years a hunter and trapper I think its still sold by Fur Fish and Game Magazine. Mr Woodcock who was a commercial hunter and trapper in PA from around the civil war until the early 1900's told how he sold a 1873 44WCF in a bad decision and needed a rifle to replace it. He tells of buying a 38WCF 73 and falling in love with it. He tells how it never failed him for any task and had enough power to kill deer and bear( most in traps) but wouldn't travel over the mountain and kill someone by accident. Also one story he said he preferred the black powder load because it was cheaper and worked well.
I have told here I have a 38WCF 1892 rifle from my Grandfather and have shot 2 deer with it and was surprised how well it worked after reading gun rags that stated I needed 1000 ft lbs to kill a deer lol.

[Ray]

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/34 ... s.html#C34

An excerpt from chapter 25.....

I always wanted as good a gun as there was on the market. By this I do not mean the highest priced, nor the highest power gun, but the gun that would do the business. A man by the name of Orlando Reese and I were the first to buy Winchester rifles in this section, and I think in this county. The guns were the common round barrel .44 caliber and we paid $60.00 apiece for them. The same kind of a gun can now, I think, be bought for $12.00 or $14.00. Previous to the time I bought the Winchester, I had been using a Henry rifle for a time, but it was not a good gun for hunting purposes. A few years later the .45-75 Winchester came into use, so I sold my .44 and bought a .45-75. I did not like it so I sold it and bought a Colts, which was a good gun, but one day I was doing some fast work on a bunch of deer and in my haste I did not work the lever just as I should and it jammed. This made me rather angry, so I sold it and got another .44 Winchester, which I used for a long time, but I disposed of it very unexpectedly.

I was coming out from camp after a new stock of provisions. My partner, Amersley Ball, was with me. We had not gone far after getting in the wagon road when we met a man by the name of Lyman who was on his way to the Cross Fork of Kettle Creek, for the purpose of inspecting the timber lands and wanted a gun to carry with him. Before Mr. Lyman was hardly in speaking distance he yelled at me and asked what I would take for my gun. Thinking that he was only joking I said $40.00.

Mr. Lyman came up to me, took my gun from my shoulders, looked at it and asked me if it was alright. I replied that if it was not I would not be carrying it.

Mr. Lyman replied, "I guess that is right," and taking a check from his pocket dropped down on one knee, filled it out for forty dollars and handed it to me, so I was without a gun right in the midst of the hunting season.

My protest was of no use, as Mr. Lyman took the gun and went his way, laughing at me. I received a little more for the gun than the usual price at the time, but there was no dealer at our place who kept the Winchester in stock. The dealers were always obliging and would take your order and get you a gun for a small profit of about sixteen dollars. I had no time to wait for a gun to be ordered, so I began to look about to find some one who had a gun for sale. Mr. Wm. Thompson, the publisher of a local newspaper in our place had bought a new .38 caliber Winchester to use in his annual outing and said that he would have no further use for a gun until another season that if I would give him $35.00, I could have his gun. I gave Mr. Thompson the money and the next morning we went back to camp.

After we had arrived at camp, I crossed the divide from the Sinnemahoning side of the Pine Creek side to hunt. I had not gone far after reaching Pine Creek before I struck the trail of five or six deer. After following the trail a ways I concluded that the deer would pass around the point of the ridge and pass through a hardwood balsam on the other side of the ridge.

I climbed the hill and made for the balsam in hope to head the deer off. I had only reached the brow of the hill so that I could look into the basin when I saw the deer. I thought to myself, there is a good chance to try my new gun, for I had not yet shot it. I drew on a large doe that was in the lead of the bunch and cut loose. The doe made a leap into the air, made a jump or two down the hill and went down, while the rest of the deer made two or three jumps up the hill towards me and stopped and looked back down the hill in the direction of the doe that I had shot. I pulled onto the shoulders of a buck, the largest deer of the bunch, who gave his tail a switch or two, wheeled, made a few jumps down the hill and fell, while the rest of the bunch made a lively break for other parts. I continued to scatter lead as long as I could see them.

I ran down to the deer that I had killed, cut their throats, removed their entrails, climbed some saplings, bent them down, cut off the tops and hung the deer on them. Getting a pole with a crotch at the end to place under the sapling, I pulled the deer up the best that I could and started on the trail of the others. I did not follow the trail long when I saw one of them had a broken leg. The deer with the broken leg soon dropped out from the others and went down the hill, crossed the hollow and went into a thick hemlock timber and laurel.

As it was nearly night, I left the trail and went home to camp. The next morning, Mr. Ball went with me to help get the wounded deer. We did not follow the trail far until we saw the deer fixing to lie down. I backed up and went up the hill above where we thought the deer might be lying. While Mr. Ball waited for me to give the signal to come. Mr. Ball had not gone far after I had howled, letting him know that I was ready, when out of the laurel came the deer. Mr. Ball was close, so that we both got a shot, killing the deer almost before it was on its feet.

Now I was so infatuated with my new gun, that it was a case of love at first sight. This was in the late 70's. I have used several different makes of guns. I also had a .30-30 Savage, which I considered a good gun for big game, and in fact, I can say that the most of the guns that I have tried were all good. I however am still married to my little .38 Winchester. I can say that in all these, considerable more than thirty years, I have never run up against a subject but that this little Winchester was equal to the emergency.

Now I wish to ask, why it is that a hunter cares for a high power gun that will shoot into the next township and kill a man or a horse that the hunter was not aware of existing, when a gun of less power will do just as good execution in deer hunting? The ammunition for the gun of lower power costs much less and there is far less danger in killing a man or beast a mile away. We hear men talk of shooting deer 200 and even 300 yards. In the many years that I have hunted deer, I believe that I have killed two deer at a distance of from 50 to 75 yards, to one a distance of 100 or 150. I believe most deer hunters will agree that there are far more deer killed at a distance of 50 or 60 yards than over that distance. I think that if those hunters who kill deer at a distance of 100 or 200 yards will take the trouble to step off the distance of their long shots, instead of estimating them, they will find that 100 yards in timber is a long ways. Yes, boys, 20 rods through the timber is a long ways to shoot a deer. Why? Because the deer can not often be seen at a greater distance, where there would be any use of shooting at all, and the little .38 will do all of that and more too.

[black river smith]

Veeman,

Nice addition to your USFA Pre-War revolver. A very fine combination of the 'old 1873's' styles. I like them both.

I had to go with an Original Win 1892 (because 38/40 rifles where not available when went looking) to put with my Cimarron Model P in 38-40 that I bought back in 2015. I bought the '92 in 2022.

Enjoy shooting that caliber.

BRS

[.45colt]

I have never seen an Uberti '73 in 38-40 . I can't wait to see a range report . Based on what Old Win has wrote All these years it should really shoot well .