My First SAA

[Rimfire McNutjob]

I did the transfer on the Taylor's Cattleman (Uberti) 3.5" Bird's Head in 45LC yesterday. I've not done a store transfer in a while and it tested my patience. The twenty-something young lady that did it took about an hour due to the chatting and texting she was doing during the transaction. She had to look at the serial number about 4 times because she would get interrupted by a text or another employee before she could commit it to the form. She also thought there was something wrong with the finish on the frame but I assured her it was a desirable color-case hardening. Apparently, she's used to selling black Glocks and AR's. Nonetheless, I survived.

Seems nicely finished, case colors look good ... not washed out. It may be a chemical job, I don't know, but it looks way better than the chemical versions they were doing 20 years ago if it is.

It took me about an hour to get the cylinder out. Yeah, the base pin doesn't have the clearance to come all of the way out as it hits the ejector tab on this short barreled gun. You have to line the cylinder up, push the ejector in and hold it, then you can push the latch pin in and pull the base pin. It's quite the circus ... especially if this is your first SAA.

My chamber throats took pin gauges as follows ... 4 took a pin gauge at .452-, 1 took a .451-, and the last one would take a .453-. I'm ordering some cast bullets sized .452 to get started and I might adjust from there. We'll see how it goes. In the mean time, I bought some Federal jacketed in 225 grain and some Grizzly WFN in 265 grain to shoot up to see how it runs.

When I load, I'm going to look to shoot 280 grain WFN's at about 725fps. Might adjust up or down from there, we'll see how they land based on point of aim.

If it works out, I might order a Colt in this config from the Custom Shop ... which I had no idea you could still do. It looks like I'll have to sell a couple of Diamondback .22's to fund it though. The wife won't tolerate me dropping that much change without some balancing out. I'm sure at least some of you know how that works.

[JimT]

Enjoy it. My suggestion would be to shoot it quite a bit before doing anything to it.
and ...
Heavy loads in the little guns recoil a bit ....

recoil.JPG

[Ysabel Kid]

Congrats! I think I'd start with some tame loads and work your way up. That is a lighter SAA.

I've had wildly varying experiences with FFL transfers. Shortest have literally been 10-15 minutes. Most of that is just me filling out the electronic form (big improvement over the paper copies years ago). Worst was in TN buying a shotgun. Took darn near 2 hours and the shotgun turned out to be a piece of stuff. Fortunately I sold it to the 10-15 minute guy + another $50 to get a working one!

[horsesoldier03]

Hope to see pics of it soon.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

Pics ... same shot, slightly different lighting. I'm definitely not a Photoshop master.

This gun DOES NOT have the cylinder pin safety where you can push it farther in and it will stop the hammer from striking the primer.

SAA-1.jpg

SAA-2.jpg

[Sarge]

I like it a bunch, Rimfire. One of those in 45 ACP would be the cat's rear end. Please let us know how it shoots.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

I like it a bunch, Tutt. One of those in 45 ACP would be the cat's rear end. Please let us know how it shoots.

Apparently, I can order a 45 ACP cylinder for it. I might look into it. I think Ysabel Kid mentioned having one for his.

[AmBraCol]

That's a nice looking little popper. I hope it gives you many years of enjoyable service. The birdshead grip frame looks quite different from my Ruger versions. Makes me wonder how it feels in firing. Both of my 45 Colt Rugers have that birdshead and it handles recoil nicely in my hands. That pistol of yours with a 45 ACP cylinder and a couple of 1911 magazines for speed loaders would make a dandy, compact, knock about pistol package.