On March 15th, 1975 I bought my first center fire revolver. It was an Iver Johnson’s, Uberti made Cattleman revolver, Model C45, caliber .45 Colt serial #20891.
Two months later a neighbor fell in love with it and made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
A Ruger Blackhawk, a Colt Frontier Scout later I was back looking at another Cattleman revolver.
I bought a second Cattleman April 13th of 76, same model, and same caliber and shot this one quite a bit. It was serial # 28916.
As I was shooting the second Cattleman I noticed the timing was slipping. I pulled it down and looked and the end of the bolt that works with the cam on the hammer had a sharp edge on it. This edge had cut a grove in the hammer cam and that was causing the timing to slip.
About then I went into my favorite gun shop again and was going to ask the gunsmith to fix the problem when I noticed a Cattleman box on the counter. In it was a, or what was left of an Iver Johnson’s Cattleman. It was a wreck. Its serial number was 28928.
The story of this revolver I've told here before, but for those who have forgotten here's what Wendell Bond the stores owner told me.
Two young guys came in and bought one of these Cattleman revolvers for each of them. Some time later they returned and griped about one of the revolvers not working properly. But rather than return it for a refund or repair, they had taken a .22RF and shot it to pieces. Literally. In the box which had phonetic obscenities written on the outside were the remains.
The top strap of the frame was pock marked with bullet impacts and bowed down badly. The top three chambers of the cylinder were caved in. The ejector rod housing was bent badly. The loading gate, although badly dinged up was still unbent and functional. The brass grip frame and trigger guard were broken into pieces, and the one piece wooden grips were splinters. Strangely enough the action was undamaged. The hammer, still cycled, the notches were untouched. A sudden light bulb went off in my mind and I asked Wendell if he could sell it to me. He looked at me like I was totally off my rocker. I then explained that my other Cattleman was having trouble and the parts in the ruined one would probably fix them. He wasn’t sure he should sell it. He was afraid the guys might come back. I asked him if he really thought they’d be back after what they did to it. He sold it to me for $5.00. The hammer and bolt fixed up my shooter Cattleman just fine and so the old wreck got laid aside for a while.
Some time later I got curious. I rigged up a bolt with nut and washers and straightened the top strap enough that the cylinder from my shooter would enter and rotate. Then I put the wreck back together as much as possible and decided to see if it would hold together with some hot loads. Sort of a test. I asked around and was told that 10 grs of Unique under a 255 or heavier bullet would be a considerable over load for that revolver. I was casting my Keith bullets then and they cast out at 268grs. So I assembled three rounds of that load and took the wrecked Cattleman to a gravel pit near the Salt River bottom south west of Phoenix. I tied it to a big truck tire I found there, tied a string to the trigger, loaded the one good chamber in the ruined cylinder, cocked it and crouched down behind my car. I fully expected to see the gun go to pieces when I fired it, but when I pulled the string all I heard was a boom. I went to the gun, it was intact, extracted the fired round and put the second one in, and again crouched behind my car as I pulled the string.
I ended up firing all three of the “proof” loads and the wrecked cylinder and damaged frame held together. I put it back in its box and put it away.
Somewhere along the line, the brass parts got tossed into the scrap brass bucket and recycled, and the ruined cylinder got tossed. I regret that now, as I took no pictures of the carnage when I had all the remains.
Twenty years later I found it buried under the ammo cans on the shelf under my loading bench. I thought, maybe I should get this rebuilt. So I took it to a local gun shop and asked the gunsmith if he could send it out to be magnafluxed. (By that time Bonds Gun Shop had gone out of business.) Just to make sure there was no hidden stress cracks in the frame. It came back with a clean bill of health. I was surprised. I left it at the gun shop and then things went sour in Phoenix and I moved to IL. Several years later in 2001 my stepson went to AZ on his vacation. I gave him a letter of authorization to pick up the revolver and bring it back to me.
After he brought it back I took a few pictures of what I had left. Not much but here they are:
If you look at the upper left corner of the box that’s where the phonetic obscenities were written, they were scratched out before I got it.
Here’s an overall view of the frame and barrel. Pretty scarred up.
Top and right side. You can clearly see the pock marks from the .22 bullets.
Top view. Why the frame did not crack or fracture is one on me. Glad it didn’t though.
Fast forward to August of 2006, after much thought I contacted Steve Young of Steve’s Guns in Texas. He and I discussed various ways to repair this gun and so I shipped it off to him for an estimate in October of ‘06. The money I had for this got frittered away on other things so it sat in his shop for over a year. Then in April of last year with the govt “stimulus check” I was able to send him some money to get the project actually started.
At first I wanted to order all new parts and fix it that way. But that was just way too expensive. So Steve suggested he look for a donor gun and use the parts from that.
As much as I hate to part out a perfectly good gun to fix another one I said go ahead. It took quit a while to find just the right donor gun and then Hurricane Ike got in the picture, delaying things even further.
I got a phone call last week, Oct 27th ‘O8 from Steve. We discussed the project and he told me a lot of what he’d had to do with it. He said he was able to cold swage the remainder of the bow out of the top strap to within .005”. I said that should be close enough. Probably can’t even see .005” of bow. We were going to use the hammer from the donor gun, but the geometry wasn’t right. The timing was off. So he ended up repairing the original hammer. He told me he had to order an oversized base pin and cylinder bushing due to the fact the base pin holes in the frame were bigger than normal. And that he had put a taller front sight on per my request. He then asked me what we were going to do about refinishing the gun. I replied, nothing. Steve said the marks on the top strap are still there, so I replied; if you refinish the gun that will take away the marks. If the pock marks are removed, so is the story behind the pistol. That’s why I didn’t want it refinished. He also mentioned that the bluing on the barrel would be ruined when he put in the taller front sight. I said, I don’t care, I’d rather put up with that than have to aim at the ground to hit the target. Besides, I already have two .45 Colt revolvers with cold blued gunsmith custom taller front sights, so it will be right at home. Steve said it would be done soon, but he still had some parts coming in and he couldn’t say exactly when.
Last Wednesday, 10-29, I finally got the word, it was nearing completion. Send a check for the balance and it would be done pretty soon. Oh joy, WHOOPPIIIEEEEE!!!
Check sent, and I got an email with pictures of the results 10-31-08.
I’m overjoyed.
My 31 year Iver Johnson’s Cattleman project is finished.
Oh joy, I’m like a kid on Christmas Eve, I’m anxiously awaiting the delivery of my rebuilt Iver Johnson’s imported Uberti made C45 Cattleman .45 Colt.
I can’t stand the anticipation.
Woooo hoooo
Maybe it will get here in time for my election day range trip.... That would be fun. I got a box of factory ammo all ready for it.
Joe
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That is a joyful message of how persistence pays off. 
