The Uberti 1873 Cattleman .22 LR is one of my favorite guns. Okay, let’s get it out in the open. I know what you’re thinking: cowboy gun. Well, that’s true, at least somewhat. But aside from the obvious throwback to the golden era of the cowboy heroes of old, even in these modern days of high-capacity plastic and aluminum, the iconic single-action (SA) revolver still has a place.
Uberti 1873 Cattleman .22 LR – Home on the Range
Whether it reminds you of happier days with Hopalong and Roy or brings back a more recent childhood with your Pop and his old Colt or Ruger. Maybe because of the solid feel of blued steel and brown walnut, a surprisingly large number of us prefer the lines, the heft, and the uncomplicated operation of a design that simply refuses to die. This continues with the medium- and big-bore centerfire calibers for recreation, hunting, and defense. It also holds in the humble .22 rimfire class. Maybe even more so there, since with a rimfire version, you get all the fun of history in hand. All without the muzzle blast, recoil, and wallet drain built into the bigger centerfires.
Rimfire SAs can be highly enjoyable despite their limited capacity and slow loading compared to a more modern semi-auto .22 pistol. These pistols are among the safest learning tools for hand gunners of all ages and sizes. They allow shooters to resist the “spray and pray” tendency that’s so easy to acquire with an auto. They pretty much force you to take more time and pay more attention to basics, and after you fire a shot, you are the one who brings the next live round-up in line to fire, and you are the one who cocks the hammer. It’s much harder for a new shooter to create an accident.
.22 Ways to Enjoy Shooting
With an SA in a moment of inattention than it is with an auto that’s instantly ready for the next shot, cocked and chambered, with only a trigger finger standing in the way of an accidental discharge. It’s been said that the SA is the thinking man’s gun in terms of having to do what it takes to shoot one well manually. While producing a major “oops” with one is still possible, operating all the way around is more straightforward. My firm opinion is that the SA .22 rimfire is one of the best “first guns” you can start most shooters out with, and it’s also one that can follow on with a lifetime of ear-to-ear grins after moving on to larger weapons.
Admittedly, one of the largest downsides to the fixed-cylinder SA revolver is its traditional six-round capacity (five in a Colt-style gun with an empty chamber in front of the hammer while carried), single brass punch-out, and single-round load-in process. For those who like to blast through several bricks of .22 rounds on a typical weekend afternoon, the SA may understandably seem ponderous. But I think it is about twice as much fun with about half as many rounds, and I’m not alone. Uberti, banking on the existence of others with similar notions, has a new version of its long-running Cattleman guns, based on the Colt Peacemaker, but now with a 12-shot cylinder instead of the time-honored six. This doubles the shooting you can do between reloads, and that’s never bad.
Uberti 1873 Cattleman .22 LR – Looks and Function
Uberti’s new 12-shot Cattleman is a good-looking iteration, with dark, well-polished bluing over most of its metalwork, excluding the color-casehardened frame and loading gate. The “colors” on the test sample were mostly limited to lighter and darker mottled grey variations. Still, on a working gun, you don’t need vivid case colors that are too pretty to use outside the house. These gave a more “seasoned” look to areas that all fade somewhat over time with exposure to real life.
The hammer is fully blued, and it wears spur checkering that I think is just about ideal—neither thin enough to cause a slippage nor aggressive enough to remove thumbprints. The metal finishes on the Cattleman are well done, as most Uberti products are—no tool marks are visible anywhere, joints in areas like the grip frame and main frame are well mated, and the one-piece walnut grips are lightly varnished and well fitted.
A Long Line of Great Guns
In profile, the new model looks very much like other generations of Uberti Cattleman models—until you squint a little more. Then you’ll see that the front sight blade is a shade lower, and when you get back to the cylinder, you’ll notice that while there are still six flutes, something doesn’t line up quite right. With the hammer either down or cocked, the position of the flutes gives the illusion of the cylinder being unlocked and between chambers. But by angling the gun to look at the front of the cylinder, you’ll see that there are now two chambers between each flute instead of one, making the cylinder appear unbalanced when in full lockup.
Removing the cylinder shows an abnormally large number of places to insert small cartridges, along with 12 correspondingly small ratchet teeth to rotate everything with. Another departure from the norm in a Colt-style sixgun is no removable cylinder bushing. If you’re really paying attention, you’ll also find small firing-pin-sized indentations milled into the recessed chambers to allow the gun to be dry-fired without damage to the pin or cylinder from an impact between the two. This is a nice touch, but dry fire can be hard on these guns in general (regardless of the maker), and I’d suggest you use spent cases or .22 snap caps if you need to click a lot.
Uberti 1873 Cattleman .22 LR
Over the years, Uberti has used a couple of different approaches to meet U.S. import safety device requirements, and this model has them. One is a double-notched cylinder base pin, and the other is a hammer-mounted “block.” The first has two notches milled around the forward end of the extended pin. The rearward notch is in the normal position held by the transverse base pin “latch” or button. In that position, the hammer can fall fully down.
To use the pin’s “safety” notch, depress the latch button and push the base pin backwards as far as it’ll go, with the hammer on its second notch (or click), until the latch locks the pin in place. That leaves it extending far enough out the back of the frame to block the hammer from falling completely, keeping the firing pin away from any possible contact with a primer or case rim.
The second safety is a sliding block set in the hammer’s face just directly below the firing pin; this one’s automatic, and it activates itself in case of a thumb slip either during cocking or when manually lowering the hammer. If the trigger’s pulled and held back in normal use, the hammer falls unobstructed to fire a round; if the hammer slips and falls with the trigger not held to the rear, either the half-cock hammer notch will catch it or the small block will rise to sit between the hammer and frame, again preventing contact between the firing pin and a cartridge. If this happens, just re-cock the hammer, allowing the block to reset itself, and you’re in business again.
Cocking Procedure
This is probably a good spot to point out the correct etiquette for handling the hammer on a Colt-pattern SA. Once you pull the hammer back to its loading notch, pull it back all the way to full-cock and then lower it to rest. If you only pull it partially back or to the loading notch and then pull the trigger to ease the hammer down with your thumb from there, the cylinder locking bolt in the frame will rise prematurely. You’ll eventually get a nice turn line engraved in the bluing around the cylinder from indexing the cylinder manually to lockup.
Off the bench at 25 yards, the rimfire Cattleman easily held under 3 inches with two loads and under 2 inches with two other loads, which is more than adequate to handle an afternoon “tin can challenge” or occasional small-game chores. The gun’s a full-sized copy of the Colt Peacemaker externally, which means it’ll fit in any leather built for the Colt. Still, its sights don’t follow the original Colt dimensions, which is a positive. The front blade and rear notch are wide enough to see instead of narrow and claustrophobic like the older Colt’s.
Smooth Trigger
The trigger pull broke at just over 3 pounds with quite a bit of early grit that smoothed out markedly by the end of the test session, and I’d expect it to continue breaking itself in with use. Loading and ejection were both easy, with the Cattleman indexing its chambers perfectly on each rotational click with the loading gate cutout in the frame and the ejector rod. Velocities were respectable through the 4.75-inch barrel, with low standard deviations. The model also has 5.5- and 7.5-inch barrels if you need more speed. The only real complaint I could drum up on the gun was the elevation, which shot close to 3 inches high at the 25-yard test distance.
As a blinker or trail gun, the Uberti Cattleman is accurate. He keeps up with any 10-shot semi-auto in capacity, if not the rate of fire. If you already have a holster for a centerfire version, you’re already ahead of the game. I always enjoy working with a single action, and this one was no exception.
For more information, visit: https://www.uberti-usa.com/
