Uberti 1873 Rifle

DESCRIPTION: Uberti 1873 Rifle

Uberti 1873 Rifle- Own a piece of the history with an Uberti 1873 Rifle. This faithful reproduction of the “gun that won the west”—the Winchester® Model 1873—features a lever lock to ensure that the lever remains securely in place for safe handling. A side-loading gate delivers effortless loading of the tubular magazine. The case-hardened frame, buttplate, and lever offer lasting performance with an elegant, yet traditional look and feel, while the Grade-A walnut stock and octagonal barrel complete the iconic appearance.

Faithful reproduction of the Winchester Model 1873
Lever lock keeps the lever securely in place
Side-loading gate
Tubular magazine
Case-hardened frame, buttplate, and lever
Grade-A walnut stock
Octagonal barrel
The Uberti 1873 Rifle: Own a Gun That Won the West
This lever action .45 Colt rifle is a piece of history that you can feel good about abusing in the field and at the range.
If a rifle can be nostalgic, it’s hard to argue against the Winchester 1873 lever-action rifle being crowned king of the sentimental hill. Often known as “the gun that won the west,” handling and beholding the 1873 Short Rifle conjures images of cowboys, campfires, cattle drives on horseback, and good guys saving the day. While not the first successful lever-action rifle, the 1873 was an evolutionary descendent of the famous Henry rifle, which arguably made the lever-action design commercially viable.

In one of those historical twists, one of the primary Henry investors was a shirt manufacturer named Oliver Winchester. One thing led to another, and before too long the name on the door read Winchester Repeating Arms Company. If you want to learn a bit more about the greatest lever action rifles of all time, check out Bryce Towsley’s article right here on Range365 One of the nifty features of many lever-action rifles like this one was the ability to share ammo between the revolver on the hip and the rifle socked away in a horse-mounted scabbard. Uberti 1873 Rifle

In fact, the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody did exactly that with a pair of Colt Peacemaker single-action revolvers and an 1873 Winchester rifle while working as an Army Scout. Choosing a Lever Gun While the Winchester 1873 was originally chambered in .44-40 / .44 WCF like Bill’s, we chose to get our hands on one chambered in the more readily available .45 Colt caliber. Besides, that’s the same caliber as the Uberti 1873 Cattleman El Patron revolver we looked at recently. Since it’s a bit challenging and even more expensive to buy 150-year-old rifles, we’re looking to classic gun maker Uberti to provide the solution. Located near Gardone Val Trompia in the Italian Alps, the company has been manufacturing reproduction revolvers and lever-action rifles for nearly 70 years. Yes, they’re passionate about preserving and celebrating history by creating replica versions of classic firearms.

When searching for a companion to the 1873 Cattleman El Patron revolver, I quickly zeroed in on the Uberti 1873 Short Rifle. I have to confess that I’m a bit of a sucker for octagonal barrels on lever-action rifles and this one has one for its full length. If a historical firearm can be considered sexy, that would do it.

This one is compact and handy with its 20-inch barrel. It’s easy to carry, light to shoulder, and doesn’t cause fatigue when shooting off hand. Your horse may also appreciate the more compact size. Uberti 1873 Rifle

This particular model features a gorgeous case-hardened receiver, trigger, hammer, and lever. Case hardening is a process that calls for baking steel with bone and charcoal to harden the outer layer of the steel for strength and corrosion resistance. It also makes for a supremely cool appearance with its swirls of blue, yellow, green, and other colors.

Other steel parts like the magazine loading door, butt plate, tubular magazine, lever lock, bolt, and barrel are blued steel, and the contrast is simply elegant. A wood stock and fore end complete the package.

Sights
The sights are old school. The front is a blued steel blade located about an inch behind the muzzle. It’s fitted in a dovetail cut in the barrel, so if you need to adjust windage (side to side), then you simply drift that side as required.

The rear sight presents a small square notch in the based of a semi-circular cutout in the blade. The larger half circle space draws your eye to the small notch in the bottom. Line that notch up with the front blade and you have a precise sight picture.

The entire rear sight unit rests on an elevator. By sliding that forward or backward into one of six different notched positions, you can control the vertical component of bullet impact. This is helpful not only for accounting for longer shots with bullet drop but matching the sights to your specific choice of ammunition. Uberti 1873 Rifle

Loading and Unloading
Much of what makes a lever-action rifle so cool is its method of operation. Manually driven, the user rotates the lever behind the trigger to eject spent cartridge casings, load a new one, and cock the hammer. It’s simple and utterly reliable. Here’s how it works on the 1873 Short Rifle:

A tubular magazine under the barrel holds 10 rounds of .45 Colt. An internal spring keeps pressure on that stack of cartridges, pushing them towards the receiver. Cartridges are inserted one at a time through a spring-loaded loading gate on the right side of the receiver, directly into the tubular magazine.

Inside the receiver, you’ll see a brass carrier. That’s a hollow box sized to fit a round. In fact, the next cartridge in the magazine rests in this carrier while the bolt is in the closed position.

As you lower the lever, swinging it forward, the bolt withdraws from the chamber, cocking the hammer as it does so, and the carrier rises so that the cartridge inside is aligned with the chamber. As you close the lever, the bolt closes, pushing the cartridge in the carrier into the chamber.

Just as the bolt closes, the carrier springs back into the “down” position. That clears space for ejection and allows the tubular magazine spring to push a new cartridge into the carrier.

It sounds complicated, but it’s an elegant and simple loading and unloading solution. With a little practice, you can complete the firing and reloading cycle surprisingly fast.

There’s a manually operated dust cover that you can close over the open chamber and carrier area. That’s handy when riding dusty trails to keep your action clean. When you lower the lever, this cover is automatically retracted to allow for spent case ejection. Uberti 1873 Rifle

There’s also a lever latch that locks the lever in place against the lower receiver tang to prevent inadvertent movement during transport. Before operating the lever, you’ll have to rotate that into the unlocked position.

Range Test: More Barrel, More Velocity
I tested the same ammo that I used for the Uberti Cattleman 1873 El Patron single-action revolver, in part because I wanted to see what performance benefits I got from the longer 20-inch barrel. Up to the point where friction overcomes the benefit from a bullet spending more time in the bore getting pushed by expanding gas, you’ll usually get extra velocity for each additional inch of barrel length.

The 1873 Short Rifle offers 15 inches more than the Cattleman revolver, so I expected big results.

1873 Revolver 1873 Short Rifle
Federal Semi-Wadcutter Hollow Point .45 Colt 225 grain 813 fps 1,056 fps
Blazer JHP .45 Colt 200 grain 870 fps 1,143 fps
With the Federal lead bullets, I measured an increase of 243 feet per second. The jacketed Blazers moved 273 feet per second faster. So, that nets about to about 17 feet per second of gained velocity for each extra inch of barrel length.

That sounds good, but what does it mean? Let’s consider the Blazer loads as an example. Let’s assume that we zero both revolver and rifle at 25 yards. Uberti 1873 Rifle

From the revolver, flying at 870 feet per second from the muzzle, by the time it reaches 100 yards, that bullet has dropped over 17 inches, slowed down to 796 feet per second, and is carrying 281 foot-pounds of energy.

When shooting the same bullet from the rifle, the bullet still drops aggressively because it’s heavy and relatively slow. At 100 yards, it’s dropped just under 10 inches and by 125 yards, it’s matched the 17-inch drop from the revolver.

On the other hand, the rifle round maintains the velocity and energy performance characteristics to over triple the distance. At 300 yards, the bullet is still moving at 803 feet per second with 286 foot-pounds of energy.

So, in short, using the same ammunition in a rifle instead of a pistol increases the effective range—a lot.

Bullet drop is a predictable thing, so adjusting for that is easy. That’s why the 1873 short rifle has an elevation adjustable rear sight. You can’t adjust for velocity and energy, so that’s the big benefit to using the rifle.

Accuracy
I did plenty of offhand plinking and had no problem hitting paper and steel targets at 25, 50, and 100 yards. I did shoot some groups at 50 yards using the 225-grain Federal Semi-Wadcutter Hollow-Point loads.

Considering this was done with iron sights and my not-so-hot eyes, I was pleased with five-shot groups that ranged between 1.56 and 1.94 inches. Uberti 1873 Rifle

Most groups had three holes touching and two flyers that opened the group pattern, so I figure my imprecise sighting had something to do with the flyers.

An Affordable Piece of History
If you’re fortunate enough to have something like an original 1873 lever–action rifle in your collection, that’s great for you! For the rest of us, and those who want to enjoy shooting one without risk of tearing up an heirloom, check out the Uberti classic reproductions.

This rifle is absolutely a work of art. Not only can you appreciate its character and appearance, you can shoot it without worry. This model carries an MSRP of $1,209.

Uberti 1873 Short Rifle SPECS
Caliber: 45 Colt
Barrel: 20″, Octagonal
Number of Grooves: 6
Twist: Right
Finish: Color Case Hardened Frame, Buttplate, and Lever
Magazine Capacity: 10+1
Barrel: Octagonal
Stock: A-grade walnut
Uberti 1873 Special Sporting Rifle
Regular readers will doubtless be aware of my liking of what I consider the best looking Winchester lever-action of all time the 1873. I have owned Uberti’s 1873 Sporting Rifle for over 10-years and used it for Classic events, Cowboy Action and just plain enjoyable shooting. With its straight-hand butt and 24 ¼” octagonal barrel I like the feel and look of this superb recreation of a legendary firearm. The old toggle locking mechanism is not as cutting edge as the more modern designs but it handles pistol calibres easily, which is what it was designed for. Uberti 1873 Rifle

SPECIAL SPORTING

One example of the 1873 I have always liked the look of though never handled is what Uberti calls the Special Sporting. It’s identical to the standard Sporting model with is colour case-hardened action and well blued barrel and magazine tube. Where it differs is in the woodwork as the butt is a pistol grip type and the forend a tiny bit fuller, both are chequered too. I have only seen this gun in the 24 ¼” length and did not know that Uberti offers this option of what they call the Short Rifle.

The Short Rifle shows a 20” barrel and is available in the Standard Sporting option as described. The Special Sporting is identical to the 24 ¼” version just 4 ¼” shorter. What I like over my 1873 is the improved handling with four inches less barrel and magazine tube out front. It’s no lightweight at 7.9 lbs but points and swings easier and more naturally. The payoff is a reduced capacity from 13+1 to 10+1, which is no hardship! Uberti 1873 Rifle

TAKE THREE

Calibre-wise Uberti offers the choice of traditional and modern with 44-40 WCF (Winchester Centrefire), 45 Colt (Long Colt) and 357 Magnum. This last will also do double duty as it can also take the slightly shorter 38 Special, as the case is identical apart from the slightly reduced cartridge overall length (COL). With the 38 you should be able to squeeze in another round, a bit academic, but why waste the power and price of 357 Magnum when a 38 will do just as well at normal ranges?

If you’re buying then I’d recommend the 357/38 options as ammo is plentiful, 45 Colt is not a bad choice either, if you want a classic cartridge. The 44-40 WCF is really for the enthusiast as factory ammo is not common and reloading this semi-bottleneck case can be problematic. Equally bullets are .410” and not the .429” of the modern .44.

WELL EXECUTED

If you have never experienced the level of quality of Uberti’s historical reproductions you are in for a treat! The steel, colour case-hardened action, hammer, trigger and lever are beautifully finished and each one is unique as to pattern. The blueing is deep, rich and well struck off. The wood is walnut and well matched with a varnish finish, which is nice but be careful as it scratches easily.

The layout consists of a surprisingly short length of pull (LOP) of just 13”, shorter than that of my Sporting Rifle by one inch. The butt ends in a crescent steel plate that locks into the shoulder easily giving good stability in operation. The octagonal barrel is heavy in profile and gives that classic look; equally pleasing is the lack of an all-encompassing barrel band in favour a simple ring that supports the magazine tube. For me this is an elegant solution. Uberti 1873 Rifle

Sights are your typical semi-buckhorn (big C-shaped cut out for fast acquisition with a small U-notch at the base for line up) at the rear, which gives elevation adjustment by a sliding wedge. There is also limited windage correction by drifting as it’s set in a dovetail, though a tiny lock screw has to be undone first. The front is a medium height/width blade in a dovetail and though basic you can fine tune these easily enough and at 50-yards inch groups are possible. Uberti also offers a more precise tang/tunnel aperture system.

LOAD UP

The 1873 loads through a right side gate in the action like most tube-magazine lever-actions, but uses a fixed-length, brass vertical feed block as opposed to a hinged lever like the Winchester 92/94 and Marlin 1894. This is COL sensitive as if the round is too long it will go into the magazine but when released backwards into the feed block the nose of the bullet will not clear the mag tube and jam the action. So be aware.

Equally the tube magazine stacks the ammunition bullet to primer, so it’s essential to use flat-nosed bullets to stop a chain fire, where the recoil would push the nose of a pointed bullet into the primer and set it off. You might get away with it with a round nose, but I would not risk it. Equally if you are reloading then the primers must be seated below the pocket by at least 0.010” too, which is common practice anyway. For the test I used Prvi Partizan (PPU) 158-grain, 357 Mag and 38 Special, also imported by Henry Krank & Co Ltd and it’s good stuff with Boxer-primed cases so reloadable too!

DIFFERENCES

The major differences between the earlier Winchester 1866 (Yellow Boy) and the 73 are more down to materials as the 66 uses a brass action and the 73 a steel one (iron back then). The main change is the sliding dust cover of the 73, which for its day was quite an advanced feature. This is closed manually but automatically opens as you cycle the action. Uberti 1873 Rifle

The operating lever is slightly curved to conform to the pistol grip on the Special Sporting and also features a safety interlock plunger. Here the lever must be squeezed up against the grip to unlock the trigger; simple and effective. There’s no manual safety instead the hammer offers ½ and full cock notches, the former giving a safe carry with a round in the chamber. Another aspect of the hammer is the fact when it’s at rest its high spur blocks the sights.

STAND ALONE BUY

The 1873 loads easily and is smooth in operation and has that solid feel and pleasing classic looks. Major differences from guns like the Winchester 94AE and Marlin 1894 is the empty case ejects straight up and back, which precludes fitting an optic over the action; not that you’d want to! A low powered scope or red dot is very much in vogue on rifles of this type for modern competition, but all Uberti’s line of classic lever-actions sit in a very historical slot so you should know what you are getting before you buy.

Accuracy with iron sights is identical with the competition, though the action stroke is maybe a bit longer and slower. As I said this rifle is for more dedicated shooting like western or classic events and for the joy of a near perfect recreation of an original and iconic design gives. Uberti 1873 Rifle