I love this old 7 1/2" Iver Johnson (Uberti) Cattleman 44 mag- it's mechanically accurate, has a great trigger and the 1860 grip frame fits me to a T. But that long barrel was a PITA in my tree stand last fall and the recent aggravation of an old shoulder repair made it worse.
So my favorite SA was gathering dust while other guns pulled chore duty. The only thing keeping me from shortening it was finding a local 'smith to cut a 3/8" front sight dovetail top dead center on the barrel. With that resolved I cut it to five inches, squared it up and worked in the new crown. I’ve always liked 5” revolvers and that length gave great handling and balance in conjunction the Army grip frame.
![Image](https://www.thesixgunjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220310_135213.jpg)
![Image](https://www.thesixgunjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220310_140134.jpg)
Here's a couple more pics of the dovetail cut and the finished crown, after a little cold blue.
![Image](https://www.thesixgunjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220319_102929.jpg)
![Image](https://www.thesixgunjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220319_103132.jpg)
I've got an assortment of old 3/8 front sights to modify and establish exactly what height I need for 100 yard elevation zero with my hunting load. I went with a dovetail mount because it provides a little wiggle room for windage adjustment. I installed an old .500 tall Marbles bead to get a feel for what sight height I'll need. It was about 10" low at 50 yards with the 205 grain /925 fps load so that's a good place to start. I also use this old Uberti with full magnum loads, but never over a 240-250 grain bullet. The good news is my full snort 240 XTP load is producing overlapping bullet splashes on steel 50 yards, so the cut/re-crown job turned out OK.
While a cobbled-in rifle bead was OK for establishing sight height requirements, I still needed a conventional revolver sight and I decided to take a stab at building one. The cut-off barrel nub still had the original Uberti blade attached. A half bottle of MAPP gas later, it was free of the barrel. I also had an old Marbles front sight with bead broke off, which had the wide base I wanted for this application. I filed it flush and Dremeled a groove down the center, just wide enough to accept the recycled Uberti front sight. This was an inexact method that, thanks to dumb luck, happened to work out well. The old front sight landed essentially square to the bore and straight up. I fluxed and tinned both components, set them in place and heated the works until the solder flowed. I also touched in a little extra to fill the slot around the sight base.
It took some file work to get it to the general shape and contour of a single action revolver sight; and I'll finish it when I'm certain it will work. I checked the overall height frequently during the process and finished the height at 0.510" some of which I'm certain will be removed during the zeroing process.
![Image](https://www.thesixgunjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220321_030804.jpg)
![Image](https://www.thesixgunjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220321_030957.jpg)
A little more heat, some cold blue and here it is mounted in the dovetail. Zeroing commences ASAP.
![Image](https://www.thesixgunjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/20220321_033710.jpg)