Reviews Index > Handguns:

Do not forget the Cowboy Action .45 Long Colt for Home Defense

Pictured on the right is Kyle, a  US Marine, is one of our Carrryconcealed.net testers. We tested the Uberti 1873 Cattleman Hombre .45 caliber Revolver using the 250-grain Winchester branded ammunition. The Uberti is available on sale at Bass Pro Shops for $269.99. If you do not have a lot of money and you want some stopping power, this is the equalizer for you. If you just want to have a reproduction of the old west and shoot it occasionally, this is a bargain. There are cowboy action holsters that are more expensive than this handgun.

The 1873 Cattleman is a large part of the American Wild West. It will hold six shots and must be loaded one bullet at a time through the cover at the back of the cylinder that lifts up. Uberti added a safety to this handgun and we are not really sure that it should be called a safety. The slide rod that holds the cylinder into the handgun frame is pushed in further and therefore blocking the firing pin from coming down. This is cumbersome and should also not be trusted if your life depended on it. Just making sure that there was an empty chamber under the hammer is safer than trusting this safety feature.

The model tested was the Matte Blue, 4 ¾ inch barrel, .45 Long Colt, Single Action, Walnut Grip with a MSRP of $325. So the Bass Pro price of $269 is a good price.

Our testers were able to get good groupings at 5, and 10 yards and with practice we were improving the 15 yard tests. The 25-yard was very tough and we needed to practice to get on the paper. If this is being used in a close quarter defense mode it has the stopping power, but has some limitations. The Single Action may be a problem for most people that are not familiar with the process of pulling the hammer back every time the gun needs to be shot. This will take practice and most people going through our classes admit they do not practice enough. Reloading would be a slow process as you can only load one shell at a time through the cover at the back of the cylinder. You can see one of our law enforcement contributors testing at the indoor 25 feet range. We were using the defense rounds during this portion of the test and good tight patterns were easily achieved. The word "patterns" was correctly used here because he was shooting a smiley face. Scott was also able to hit constant 10 ring shots. He felt the gun had less kick than he expected.

The advantages to this reproduction is the price and the nock down power of the .45 Long Colt round. If you do not have a lot of money and need a hand gun for the open range, this would be a good choice. If you only had enough money for one gun, we would recommend a shotgun. Like us, if you wanted to play in the Cowboy Shooting sports, this is a good starter pistol. Happy trails, and keep the lead down range - Clark - Carryconcealed.net

Bookmark and Share:

Please Rate this Review:

5 of 5 Stars 4 of 5 Stars 3 of 5 Stars 2 of 5 Stars 1 of 5 Stars 0 of 5 Stars

Current Rating: