Uberti 1876 Winchester

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 8/19/20 | M Nesbitt

[w1n1]

Our man with the black powder on his hands tests loads for the 'new' .50-95 1876 Winchester manufactured by Uberti.
One big difference between the old and new .50-95-caliber rifles is that the original Winchesters from 1879 had a rate of twist in their barrels of one turn in 60 inches. That was for the very short 300- or 312-grain .50-caliber bullets. Today’s copies of those guns, namely the Uberti version of the old Winchester Model 1876, have barrels with one turn in 48 inches. That simply means the new .50-95s will perform with slightly heavier bullets.

When it was introduced, the .50-95 Winchester was the largest member in the line-up of cartridges for the repeating Model 1876. All of the cartridges chambered in the 1876 Winchester were considered short-range rounds when comparing them to the mid range and long range cartridges that were available only in single-shot rifles at that time.

And the .50-95 was an express cartridge, shooting a rather lightweight bullet at a high velocity, listed at 1,556.8 feet per second, making it a powerful hunting rifle for thin-skinned game within, let's say, 200 yards.

THE UBERTI 1876 IN .50-95 has a 28-inch barrel, the same length as their other 1876 calibers. Along with a different twist rate, the groove diameter of the barrels on the new guns is a touch wider than the old Winchesters.
The rifle shot for this update had a barrel with a .514-inch groove diameter, and Mike said the original he shot with had a .509-inch groove diameter. These are simply little differences we should know about in advance of preparing any "special diet" for the newer .50-95. Another "new thing" that wasn't available when Mike did his loading and shooting for his book with the .50-95 was Jamison's brass or ammunition.
Jamison, now a division of Captech International (visit captechintl.com/products), offers both new brass and loaded ammo for all of the Winchester Model 1876 calibers, which includes the .50-95. Read the rest of Uberti 1876 Winchester.

[This_Dude]

It was chambered in .30-30. never was much for pistol caliber carbines myself, unless it’s full auto. Thompsons of all models will always have a place in my heart

[schurmann]

REF: Your post 17, on challenges of gun sales and repair.

Thanks for the strange tales ably told.

My respect for gun owners declined, after taking a job in the trade.

Gotta say, your report on the unchambered Winchester commemoratives takes the cake. After taking on repairs of commemorative/special issue pieces, we began to wonder if manufacturers were sending assembly-line rejects to the custom-finish companies.

With reluctance, I’d put Colt’s on your list of companies exhibiting poor QC during those low years. We encountered two DA revolvers of late manufacture that had their barrels insufficiently torqued: a Mk III Trooper and a Mk V Peacekeeper. Front sights were visibly tilted to the right. The rear sights had to be adjusted far to the right to center the point of impact. Interestingly, both shot very tight groups.

Every dealership seems to count among its customer base someone who’s free with the checkbook. You had the Yolo County rice grower. We had a full colonel retired from the Air Force. He did the snowbird migration: showed up each spring at our shop in western South Dakota, traded several guns he bought the year before, bought several brand-new ones, took them south in the fall to his Texas abode, returned the following spring and did it all over again. He lost large amounts of money in this fashion.

Western South Dakota boasts many farms and ranches: agriculture is the state’s chief activity and landowners own guns for daily use. Often they were very hard on such tools, but they expected a lot from them and squeezed out every drop of utility. Repairing guns from the 1860s wasn’t unknown for us; once we fixed a very worn Winchester 1873 dating to 1887 for its rancher owner. 1892s and 1894s made before 1910 were a matter of routine repair. Marlins were commonly fixed - even 1881s .

[Swordmaker]

Every dealership seems to count among its customer base someone who’s free with the checkbook. You had the Yolo County rice grower.

We also had a Folsom Prison guard who would come in and buy a basic Smith & Wesson Model 29 4” .44 magnum. He’d spend a lot of money installing extra wide trigger and hammer, special sights, having the gunsmith tune it to a fine T, put on Goncalvo Alvarez Rosewood Grips, send it out to have 18K gold inlays installed, after having sent back to S&W to have it highly polished and professionally re-blued or nickel plated to their highest grade, etc. Once or twice he had them do a full factory engraving. He’d then buy a S&W presentation case for it.

Then, a year later or so, he’d come in and trade it in for another basic Smith & Wesson Model 29 4” .44 Magnum and start the process all over again. He did this like clock work. We’d be happy to do this, and sell him all the parts and let our gunsmith do everything except the custom stuff done by S&W, and the gold inlays.

Between all of us who worked there, we counted at least ten times he had done this. It was his hobby, we figured. Expensive hobby. . . But he did none of the work, he just paid for it.

One Monday morning, he came in completely down in the dumps. I’d never seen him so sad. It seems he’d bought a brand new Volkswagen Beetle the previous Friday, and on Sunday had driven to the Crossroads Shopping Center in South Sacramento on Freeport Boulevard with his wife. While they were shopping his brand new bug was hit by a privately owned F86 Sabre Jet that over-rotated, thus failed to achieve flying speed while trying to take off out of Sacramento Executive Airport after an air show. The jet barreled across Freeport Boulevard, through the parking lot and knocked his VW forward and then with the VW, came to rest, exploding inside Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour where 22 people, 10 adults and 12 children, were killed. The pilot was pulled out by a passerby and survived, suffering only a broken arm and leg.

Photo taken from the Sacramento Executive Airport Tower

Because of where he chose to park his new VW, both he and VW were pulled into the lawsuit for negligence. The judge dismissed the claims against him and VW early on as there was no negligence in parking in a legal parking space in the parking lot.

How do you explain the accident which totaled your new car to your insurance adjuster. . . My new VW Bug was hit by a jet...