Crappy Uberti Screws Strike Again

A good part of my gun collection was made by Uberti. However, a pet peeve of mine is that the scews they use to build their guns are apparently made from cheese. For the price of these guns it's reasonable to expect that the screws will be hardened, not cross threaded, and not over-torqued, as they often are.

Today I detail stripped my 1992-vintage Uberti 1851 Navy. It was working fine but filthy inside and in need of a thorough cleaning.

One of the things I found was that the screw that holds the bolt/trigger spring in place was cross threaded at the factory. I lucked out and had an 8-32 tap so I was able to chase the threads in the frame, but I don't have an 8-32 die. (I ordered one from Amazon after discovering this.) However, the screw itself is trashed and even if I had the die I don't know if I'd be able to restore it.

So, I went to VTI Gun Parts and sent them emails to check stock on their set of properly hardened replacement screws, and also a spare hand spring while I was at it. (For whatever reason their website doesn't report live inventory.)

One of the other weaknesses of the Italian replicas is the spring for the bolt and trigger. It's flat steel and prone to breaking. I haven't broken one myself but prevention is good, so I went over to Wolff Gun Springs and ordered wire replacements for my Uberti and Pietta single actions. I'm told that Piettas use the springs for EMF Hartford guns, so I ordered 4 of those along with three Uberti replacements.

<grumble, grumble>

K-Frame Grip Adaptor on an Uberti Bisley

Last week I was on the BK Grips web site and saw his comment stating that his K-Frame adaptors may fit Colt Bisleys. I decided to give it a try and order one. I figured if it doesn't fit I can always put it on a K-Frame.

A few days later I was rummaging around the midden and ran across a Pachmayr K-Frame adaptor that I'd known I had but didn't remember where I put it. (Doesn't it always work that way?) I had to give it a try on the Bisley, and hot damn, it fits!

Last night I took the Bisley to an indoor range. I was pleased to see that augmenting the grip did not change the point of impact, nor did it make the gun uncomfortable shoot. I'll be leaving this grip adaptor on the gun.

When the USPS deigns to deliver the adaptor I'll put it on my S&W Model 1905, 4th Change Target Model.

Removing Stubborn Screws from an Uberti 1866 Sporting Rifle

AKA, "When I said get out, I wasn't asking."

Earlier this year I bought an Uberti 1866 Sporting Rifle chambered for .38-40 WCF. Uberti build beautiful guns but unfortunately, many of them seem to be assembled by a gorilla who applies 87,000 pound-feet of torque to screws that are slightly harder than cheese.

This rifle is one of them.

I wanted to remove the sideplates from the action to inspect the inside and lubricate it with Ballistol. I also wanted to replace the loading gate cover (AKA ladle) with a stronger, aftermarket piece.

After weeks of soaking in Kroil, I was able to remove the lever screw. However, I still couldn't budge the sideplate screw. Even though I used a properly fitting gunsmith screwdriver bit, all I managed to do was booger the screw head.

A few weeks ago I ordered a set of replacement screws that are properly hardened from VTI Gun Parts. (Part # 220-H.)

So, today I braved the hot, humid Southeastern Pennsylvania weather and went out to my backyard shop so I could use my Grizzly G8689 mini-mill as a drill press.

First, I drilled into the sideplate screw on the end where it screws into the right sideplate. This relieves some pressure on the threads.

Note the use of a center drill for starting the holes. This is important because they are more rigid than twist drill bits and you don't want the bit walking off to the side and damaging the receiver.

Then I flipped over the rifle and drilled into the screw head, and then used a screw extractor held in a tap handle to back it out.

While I had the rifle open I also replaced the lever spring screws. A trick to reduce tension on these so you can move them is to slide the lever springs to the side. This worked for the right hand screw but not the left one. So, back to the mill.

This time I put the screw extractor in the drill chuck and manually rotated it (my mill cannot rotate to the left).

After reassembling the rifle I adjusted the tension on the lever so that it's a little easier to work than before but still holds the lever up.

I won't be disassembling the rifle regularly. Even when fired with black powder cartridges, the .38-40's thin brass seals the chamber very well. Virtually no fouling makes it into the action. (The same goes for .44-40, which I shoot in an 1860 Henry and 1873 Sporting Rifle.) However, I can now easily get into the action should it be needed for repair.

New Workbench

Ever since we decided to move my daughter downstairs and allow me to reclaim my home office, I've been considering putting a workbench in. Although I have a workshop out back, it's not climate controlled. So, it's often uncomfortably warm in the summer, and frigid in the winter. I could really use a space in the house to tinker with stuff and fix things.

So, last week I ordered a Seville Classics UltraHD workbench from Home Depot. (It's also available from Amazon.) It arrived around 7:00 PM last night. I mostly put it together last night and finished up this morning.

It's very solid and went together pretty easily. The frame, pegboard backsplash, drawer, and shelf are all made from steel. The work surface is 1.5" butcher block, well-finished, and heavy. It came with a power strip that has two USB ports and an LED light that's mounted under the top shelf. It came with an assortment of hooks to mount on the pegboard.

The dimensions are 65.6" high x 24" deep x 48" wide. The top of the work surface sits 37" high. It's really the only thing I'd change. Being short I would prefer it to be a few inches lower.

It came with two tools for assembly: a stamped steel wrench and a long Phillips head screwdriver, which is magnetized. That came in handy although I mostly used my drill with suitable screw driver bits. It also came with a few spare screws.

My first project was to clean my 1948-vintage Remington 550-1 .22 autoloader. I put at least 100 rounds through it on our last camping trip, including a bunch of CCI .22 CB Shorts, so it was filthy inside.

Next up will be my Uberti 1866 Yellowboy. Since getting it earlier this year I haven't removed the sideplates. Unfortunately, Uberti has a bad habit of over-torqueing the action screws on their rifles, which combined with their cheese-like hardness means that there's a good chance some will be destroyed in removal. I therefore have hardened replacements on order from VTI Gunparts. After getting the gun apart I also intend to replace the loading gate cover (AKA "ladle") with a stronger, improved one. For now, I have penetrating oil soaking into the screws.

Yellowboy Range Report

I took some time off today and got the chance to shoot my new Yellowboy rifle this afternoon.

Function was 100% with cowboy action shooting loads from Black Hills and Ultramax. Accuracy with them was poor. I expected this based on my prior experience with factory CAS .44 WCF ammo in my Henry and 1873.

The Ultramax actually shot a little better than the Black Hills loads.

I'm not sure if the commercial manufacturers use bullets that are too hard for optimum accuracy, or if they dont' shoot all that well since they are downloaded. In the case of .44-40, Black Hills uses bullets that are too small to shoot well in modern Uberti barrels (.427 vs. .429). Anyway, I get groups with BH .44 WCF like the one shown above, but the same rifle with group into 2" with my handloads.

On the other hand, function was very rough using some black powder handloads I had put together using an original 19th Century Ideal tong tool, with bullets cast in that tool's integrated mold. I loaded these a couple years ago intending to shoot them in my Winchester 1892, but never got the chance to before that rifle was stolen.

Anyway, the cartridge OAL wasn't correct on all of them so several times the action bound up, requiring excessive force to function. If I don't pull the remainder of them I'll load them singly. However, accuracy flat out sucked with those rounds so they'll probably just get pulled, rather than wasting components.

I'm planning to break in the Accurate 40-180E mold this weekend. I expect the rifle to shoot well with bullets cast in it.

The other thing hurting accuracy today was the rifle's trigger pull. While crisp, it's far too heavy, probably around 10 lbs. I'm going to look into some careful work with some slip stones to see if I can't get that down to an acceptable level (4 to 5 lbs. would be ideal).

Finally, I wanted to post this picture of a fired case next to a complete .38-40 cartridge. As you can see, the fired case is very much blown out. This is typical with guns chambered in .38-40. For some reason the specs for unfired cases are much smaller than the chambers. This results in a situation much like that seen with Lee-Enfields in .303 British.

In the case of the Lee-Enfield it was designed to allow military rifles to function with dirty or corroded ammo on a battlefield, but nobody seems to know why it's the case with .38-40.

Range Day, and Presbyopia Sucks

I was off today and went to the range with three wheelguns:

• H&R Model 733 in .32 S&W Long, with a 2.5" barrel
• Ruger GP100 in .38 Special, with a 4" barrel
• Uberti Bisley in .44 WCF, with a 5.5" barrel

Under the florescent lighting, I had a hard time seeing the front sight of the H&R and even the Ruger. When shooting both outside I had better luck being able to see their front sights but today, the H&R's was all but invisible. I have the H&R's front sight painted white but it just disappeared in the range lighting today. I'm going to try hitting both with some hi-viz green to see if that helps.

One of the reasons I ordered the Uberti with a 5.5" barrel was because I thought it might be easier to see the front sight compared with a 4.75" barrel. It was the one gun I shot today with which I didn't have difficulties.

Yay, middle-age.

In other news, I shot some more rounds from the box of .44 WCF handloads I'd put together with 7.0 grains of Hodgdon Universal under a 200 grain RNFP Desperado Cowboy Bullets. Grouping was OK but I had two squibs that blooped the bullet out of the barrel but were definitely underpowered. In both cases the barrel had a lot of unburned powder left in the bore. I'm going to pull down the rest of those rounds.

The only possible causes I can think of are (a) bad primers, or (b) contamination of the powder charge by my case lube. I degreased the cases after resizing but I'm wondering if I didn't do good enough of a job, and the powder was damaged in those rounds.

Even with the aggravation it beat going to work!

Loaded some .44-40 for the Bisley

This afternoon I took advantage of unseasonably warm weather to spend some time out in my shop and load up another box of ammo to try in the Uberti Bisley. I used once-fired Starline brass from last night with the same powder charge, 7.0 grains of Hodgdon Universal. However, this time I used my home-cast bullets from the Accurate 43-215C mold.

It will be interesting to see if the heavier bullet affects the point of impact. I'm expecting it to be a bit higher. (At close range, handguns tend to have a lower POI with lighter projectiles, because they recoil less and thus the muzzle flip is less when the bullet leaves the barrel.)

Another thing that will be of interest is how well my homebrewed lube of 50/50 beeswax/mutton tallow works with smokeless powder. It works very well with black powder.

I also want to try this bullet with 8.0 grains of Universal, and 8.0 grains of Unique. I recently bought an 8 pound jug of Unique so I am hoping that it'll work well in the Bisley.

Uberti 1873 Bisley .44-40

This week I took delivery of an Uberti 1873 Bisley with 5.5" chambered for .44-40 WCF. I ordered it from Dixie Gun Works and had it shipped to a local FFL who handled the transfer for $30.

The fit and finish is very nice although I am not 100% thrilled with the varnish finish on the grips. I may strip them and finish them with Watco Danish Oil.

I didn't test the trigger with a gauge but it's crisp, and I'm guessing it's around 3 pounds, with hardly any creep.

The piece has Uberti's Cattleman II-type lockwork which includes a transfer bar and retracting firing pin, which allows it to be safely carried with all six chambers loaded.

Tonight I took it to the range with my father and brother. We shot three different loads:

1. Black Hills 200 grain CAS loads.
2. Handloads with 200 grain bullets from Desperado Cowboy Bullets on top of 7.0 grains of Hodgdon Universal powder.
3. Handloads with 219 grain bullets cast in an Accurate Molds 43-215C mold, on top of 1.9cc (~28 t0 30 grains) of Goex 3Fg plus 0.5cc of cornmeal filler. I'd put these together to mimic the ballistics of the .44 Henry Flat round, to shoot in my Cimarron 1860 Henry.

Even though the black powder load is a reduced load for .44 WCF, it had quite a bit more recoil than the smokeless loads, although it wasn't painful.

Some target pics:

I'm quite pleased with the accuracy. As you can see, it's shooting low. This was expected because several years ago Uberti started putting taller front sights on their revolvers. This allows the owner to zero it for elevation with his preferred load. Once I settle on a load I'll probably zero the piece for 25 yards.

This is my first Bisley-style revolver and I can say now that I am a fan. I found it to handle recoil very well.

I'm really happy with the revolver and look forward to putting a lot more rounds downrange with it.

.44-40 Chronograph Results

Today I went to the range with my brother, who has a Shooting Crony Beta Master chronograph. I was able to measure the velocity of three .44-40 loads. Measurements for each load was for a 10 shot string.

All shots were from my Cimarron Firearms Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle in .44-40 WCF with a 24.25" barrel. Brass was Starline and primers in the handloads were Federal No.150 large pistol primers.

First up were 10 rounds with a ~215 grain cast bullet from my Accurate Molds 43-215C mold on top of 2.2cc (~35 grains) of Swiss 3Fg black powder.

Average velocity: 1329.4 FPS
Standard deviation: 11.6 FPS
Extreme Spread: 42 FPS
Muzzle energy: 843 foot-pounds

These grouped into about 2" at 50 yards.

Second were 10 shots loaded with a Lyman 200 grain cast bullet on top of 8.6 grains of Alliant Unique smokeless powder. The Lyman bullets were from a box I bought years ago. They are pretty good bullets but no longer available.

Average velocity: 1307.2 FPS
Standard deviation: 21.462 FPS
Extreme spread: 82.98 FPS
Muzzle energy: 758 foot-pounds

These printed a somewhat larger group, about 2.5" to 3". They gave noticeably better accuracy than rounds loaded with only 8 grains of Unique. I was not surprised at the much larger SD since I've read that .44-40s loaded with Unique can have wide variations, unless you tilt the muzzle of the rifle for each shot to get the powder back near the primer. In contrast to the largely empty case when loaded with Unique, the black powder loads have 100% loading density, and are in fact compressed loads.

That said, the rounds with Unique performed better than I expected.

Finally, I chronographed 10 Black Hills .44 WCF 200 grain cowboy action shooting loads. As expected, these were a lot slower than the first two loads.

Average velocity: 1123.1 FPS
Standard deviation: 15.358 FPS
Extreme spread: 41.78 FPS
Muzzle energy: 560 foot-pounds

Even though these were more consistent than the handloads with Unique, if you go by SD, they don't shoot nearly as accurately. Just like when I've shot them before groups were about twice as large as the full power rounds. It's also possible that the rifle doesn't like the Black Hills bullet.

I have three more loads that I want to chronograph, all using bullets cast in the 43-215 mold:

(1) 23.5 grains of Alliant Reloder 7.
(2) 2.2cc of Goex 3Fg black powder.
(3) 2.2cc of Goex Olde Eynsford black powder.

I'm expecting the Reloder 7 loads to at least equal but probably exceed the velocity of the Swiss BP loads, the Olde Eynsford to perform similarly to Swiss, and the Goex to tail behind but hopefully shoot accurately.

More Handload Testing in the Cimarron Uberti 1873

Today I shot my .44 WCF Cimarron Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle with two variants of smokeless loads and then with black powder cartridges.

The two batches of smokeless loads were shot first. Both were loaded with 8.5 grains of Alliant Unique and 200 grain cast bullets. The first batch were from an old box of Lyman .429 hard cast with a moly lube, while the second batch were .428 soft cast from Desperado Cowboy Bullets. Both loads shot to the same point of aim and grouped about the same. Either would hold the black of an SR-1 target at 50 yards offhand. Recoil was very mild, similar to the low power commercial cowboy action shooting loads.

After cleaning the bore of the smokeless lube residue, I put 50 rounds of black powder cartridges through the rifle. They were loaded with 35 grains of Swiss 3Fg with a 200 grain soft lead bullet cast in an original Winchester mold. The bullets were lubed with a mix of beeswax and mutton tallow with a little canning paraffin.

The bullets in the black powder rounds dropped from the mold undersized, at about .425 - .426. I was hoping that the soft lead would bump up but based on my group at 50 yards, they didn't bump up enough. The group was about 8" offhand, not particularly good. I'm looking to develop a hunting load that will do 4" or less at 100 yards from a bench.

However, I was very pleased with the minimal amount of fouling in the bore and on the cases. Even after 50 black powder rounds there was no crud buildup in the bore, and no sudden deterioration in accuracy (such as it was). When I cleaned the rifle afterwards with MPro-7, all it took was two wet patches (running both sides through the bore). When I ran the first side of the third wet patch through it came out clean. With this bullet style, lube, and Swiss powder, I could probably shoot 100 rounds without it fouling out.

Before I cleaned the rifle I took a picture of the muzzle, showing the nice "lube star," indicating that the bullets carried enough lube for the length of the barrel.

(I'd placed a cleaning patch in the open breech to reflect light up the bore. I couldn't capture the state of the bore but it was a lot cleaner than I'd expected.)

The rifle's action stayed clean. The thin .44 WCF brass expands under the pressure of the full load to seal the chamber and prevent fouling from getting back into the action.

One problem I ran into today was that about 1/3 of the BP rounds didn't feed smoothly into the chamber. They seemed to hang up on the case mouth, indicating that the crimp wasn't uniform or deep enough. All the BP loads were assembled using the Winchester Model 1882 tool, while the smokeless rounds were loaded on my Lee Classic Turret press. All the smokeless rounds fed smoothly. The next time I use the Winchester tool I'll need to pay more attention to the crimping operation.

Even though the accuracy of the BP loads wasn't acceptable they were a good proof of concept, in that I've found a style of bullet that with the right lube will allow me to shoot at least 50 rounds without the bore fouling out. Also, the smokeless loads will make for good plinking rounds when I'm feeling lazy about cleaning the rifle the same day I shoot it. My club is having a lever action match next month and I'll probably use the remaining smokeless rounds in it.

Shooting the Uberti 1873 With Black Powder Loads

Today I put 60 rounds of black powder .44-40s through my Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle.

Fifty were loaded with Swiss 3Fg while the remaining 10 were loaded with Goex 3Fg. Either the bullets I used do not carry enough lube for a 24" barrel, or cowboybullets.com's lube isn't good enough for BP. (It's advertised as being suitable for BP or smokeless.) I got a bad ring of crud for a few inches back from the muzzle. Accuracy went to hell after about 15 rounds. For the first 15 rounds I could easily hold the black of an SR-1 target offhand at about 25 to 40 yards. After 15 rounds the bullets impacted all over the paper.

Shooting the rounds with Swiss powder and Goex side by side reinforced how much better the Swiss is. It fouled noticeably less, and judging by the recoil and boom, was a more powerful load. Frankly, Goex is crap in comparison with Swiss powder. Goex Olde Eynsford is supposed to be comparable with Swiss but at a lower price. The next time I'm up at Dixon's I'll pick up a pound to try out.

I have an antique Winchester mold and tong-type loading tool on the way, that I bought on eBay. They were made in the late 19th/early 20th Century. We'll see how bullets cast in that mold do using my homebrew lube based on the Gatofeo Number 1 lube.

(Picture from the eBay auction. I'm hoping to get them in hand on Monday.)

If the bullets from the Winchester mold don't shoot well, I'm going to get a more modern design that holds more lubricant.

Either way, it's fun experimenting.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I removed the rifle's sideplate and found very little fouling inside in the action. The little that was there was on the bolt, and no doubt to my cleaning the rifle in the field, and running down. The thin .44-40 brass sealed the chamber very well.

First Batch of Black Powder .44-40 WCF Handloads

Tonight I loaded up my first batch (hopefully of many) of black powder .44-40 handloads for my Cimarron Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle.

Here are a bunch of charged cases in the loading block:

Black powder is usually measured by volume, and that's what I did. I used the same volumetric measure I use for my muzzleloaders, set to 35 grains.

A lot of guys who load black powder cartridges use a drop tube to allow the powder to fill the case slowly and take up less room. I don't have a drop tube, but if you look in the picture above, you can see that the funnel I'm using is a couple inches long. It's actually a powder flask filling funnel from Ted Cash. I can pour the powder from my measure from a few inches above the funnel and have it all go down into the case, so it's almost as if I have a short drop tube.

This resulted in a slightly compressed charge, which is what you want with black powder.

And here's 50 loaded rounds, with an unloaded bullet:

My recipe consists of:

• Virgin Starline brass
• Federal Number 150 large pistol primer
• 200 grain .428" RNFP soft cast bullet from Desperado Cowboy Bullets
• 35 grains by volume of Swiss 3Fg black powder

I got a sample pack of 100 of the bullets to try out. Most commercially cast bullets are hard, with a BHN in the high teens to 20 or more. However, these are around 8 to 9 BHN. At .428" they may be a little undersized for the Uberti's barrel but I'm hoping they'll bump up due to being soft and using black powder. One thing I'm concerned about is if they'll carry enough lube for my rifle's 24.25" barrel. If not, I'll see a fouling buildup towards the muzzle. I have another 50 of these bullets. If it turns out they don't carry enough lube I'll load the remainders on top of some Unique.

Aside from the sample pack of .44-40 projectiles, I also got a 100 count sample pack of .358" 158 grain RNFP bullets to load in my Rossi 92 .357 Magnum. Yup, I plan to load up some black powder .357s, just because.

I have a good stash of Goex 2Fg and 3Fg, and some Swiss 3Fg. The Swiss powder is much cleaner burning and more energetic than Goex (and this is reflected in its price). For shooting Goex loads in my rifle I think I'm going to want either a bullet with a larger grease groove, or use a bit less powder plus a lubed wad under the bullet.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to get out this weekend to make some smoke. I'll follow up with a range report on how these cartridges worked out.

Stupid Soft Uberti Screws

Uberti builds beautiful firearms but they use screws with the same hardness as used chewing gum, and then have some gorilla crank them down. I want to be able to shoot black powder loads in my Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle so I need to be able to access the inside of the receiver.

After a week and a half soaking in Kroil, and the application of heat with a soldering iron and then with a torch, I still couldn't budge the sideplate screw. The more I tried the more the head got boogered. Yes, I used properly fitting hollow ground screwdrivers.

So, I drilled out both ends with my mill and used a screw extractor held in a tap wrench to remove it. I replaced it with a properly hardened screw and put anti-sieze on the threads.

What a PITA.

I installed a properly hardened replacement from VTI Gun Parts and made sure to put a little SuperLube grease on the threads as an anti-sieze. I actually bought a complete set of replacement screws but I'm haven't replaced the rest of them yet. The factory screws have a nice, deep blue while the replacements are matte. I'll replace them as needed. In the meantime I have applied Kroil to all of them.

Cimarron Firearms Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle

Meet Claudia -- as in Cardinale -- my new Cimarron Firearms Uberti 1873 Sporting Rifle in .44-40 WCF. (Can you tell I watched a few 1960s vintage westerns last week?) I ordered her from Buffalo Arms in Idaho on March third, and she arrived at my FFL one week later. I picked her up the next day.

She has a 24-1/4" octagonal barrel and the wood is are walnut. Cimarron lists the weight at 8.6 lbs. and it feels about like that. Even when shooting original spec loads -- a 200 grain bullet at about 1200 - 1300 FPS -- recoil is very mild. The modern neutered cowboy action shooting (CAS) loads are milder still.

In person the blueing, color case hardening, and wood finish are even better than in the pictures. The wood to metal fit is generally very good, although where the forearm meets the receiver the wood stands a little proud.

One thing Uberti still needs to work on is their screws. They aren't properly hardened at the factory and they over tighten them. I've experienced this with other Uberti Firearms. I'm trying to get the side plates off the '73 but so far the screw won't budge and even using a correct screwdriver, I boogered the head. VTI Gun Parts sells replacements but this is damn annoying on a rifle that I just dropped $1200 on. In the meantime, I'm hitting the screws with Kroil everyday and I hope that after a week, I can remove the side plates without drilling.

Today I took Claudia up to my friend's place and we put 55 rounds through her -- one 50 round box of Black Hills 200 grain lead CAS loads, and 5 rounds of Winchester 200 grain JSPs that I had left from the Navy Arms Uberti 1873 Carbine I used to own. It was drizzling and eventually began to rain, so we only had the chance to shoot offhand at about 25 yards. IOW, no serious accuracy testing. However, the rifle functioned perfectly and I noticed that the Winchester jacketed loads printed smaller groups than the lead CAS ammunition.

One thing that was evident was how much smoother the 1873 action is than my Rossi 92, Marlin 1894, or Marlin 336. The straight-line feed of the '73 allows the cartridges to slide right into the chamber, compared with the angled feed on the other rifles. I can see why the '73s, and similar 1866 Winchester replicas are the preferred rifles for CAS.

I have no plans to install a short-stroke kit it but I need to do something about the sights. They are authentic. I.e., hard to see except against a nice, bright target. I'm looking at replacing the front with a brass or ivory-colored bead, and the rear buckhorn with a flat top open sight. Cap and Ball on Youtube installed a ladder rear sight for a Henry rifle on his Uberti 1873 rifle. That's an interesting option. I'm also interested in maybe installing a tang sight, in which case I'd want a folding leaf rear sight, so it's not in the way.

Uberti and Cimarron list the capacity as 13 rounds in the magazine plus one in the chamber. However, I found that I was able to load 14 in the magazine. Truly, the Winchester '73 was as close as you could get to an assault rifle when it was introduced.

Last night I went out to my shop and found my .44-40 dies and a box of 100 Lyman 200 grain lead RNFP bullets lubed with some kind of moly. I'm going to research smokeless loads to duplicate the original BP ballistics, but I want to start loading ammo with BP for the gun. After I slug the bore I'll order some suitably-sized and lubed bullets for it.

Except for the screw issue I am very happy with the rifle. It's beautiful to look at and fun to shoot.