No. 3 Russian choices and maker

[mtgelaude]

     Hello everyone,  Got some questions for you about the No. 3 Russians that are being made today by Uberti, but in there lies the question.

    I know that ASM used to make Schofields for Cimarron, Navy Arms, etc. but that they are now made by Uberti, was there ever a Russian made by ASM, or did they come around later?  I only ask because I have a line on a used Navy Arms No. 3 Russian in .44 Russian, and am wondering who made it, I can not tell from the pictures.  If it could have been made by ASM, which I have heard of a lot of problems with most of there guns and that they are hit or miss as to whether or not you get a good one, I would maybe rule to stay away from it alltogether.  

    The second question pertains to the chambering of .44 Russian.  I can not find it in the archives, or the net, so I ask it here.  First, and I think htat the answer is no but I will ask, can the .44 russian shoot .44 Special?  I am not sure of the lengths, or Dia. ?  And, can a revolver origionally chamberd for the Russian be re chamberd to shoot .44 Special, while still being able to shoot russian.  I have all the equipment for .44 Special, and .45 Colt, and tons of brass for each.  If I could maybe later make it a dual cartridge gun, then great, but if not I mite rethink getting one in .45 Colt.

    I like the idea of having a gun in an origional loading like the No. 3 Russian, chambered in .44 Russian, but do not like the idea of HAVING to buy dies and brass for a new caliber.  I have heard that the russian is one of the more accurate choices, and that it was the target round of the day, and that the velocity actually increesed a bit over the .45 Colt (depending on laods used), which is nice.  But the money that would be required to reload for a new cartridge would by me a lot of lead, brass, primers etc.  Not to mention, I have many, many, many rounds and components of .45 LC and .44 Special  Thanks everyone for there help.

Matthew

[The Pathfinder]

Hopefully others with more knowledge will chime in here, but from what I know ASM never made a Russian model (thank God). So that being said, all the new Russian model 3's will be from Uberti. The 44 Russian ctg is the parent gtg of the 44 S&W Special. The special is nothing more than a stretched Russian, and a firearm chambered for the Russian SHOULD not chamber a Special. Could a cylinder be able to be opened up to accept the Special? If it is long enough, yes. You would have to look at how long the cylinder is on the Russian model to tell. Hope this helps, good shootin'.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Starline makes .44 Russian cases, others might as well.  I have made ammo for my German M83 Reichsrevolver, which is so similar as "make-no-matter" to the Russian.  I use regular .44 mag dies.

[Trailrider]

ASM never to my knowledge made a New Model Russian clone.  The Schofields they made, although a more exact copy of the originals, were so badly manufactured that Cimarron Arms dropped them, and ASM subsequently went out of business (at least as far as the owners at the time were concerned).  Uberti's Russians are close to the originals, but beefed.

The .44 Russian cartridge is the parent of the .44 Special and .44 Magnum, the main difference being in the length of the case.  Within manufacturing tolerences, the rim diameter, rim thickness and base diameter in front of the rim are the same.

Yes, a .44 Russian chambered gun could (probably) have the chambers lengthened to take .44 Specials, but if you are talking about original guns, I would NOT do it.  The reason is the potential for putting a higher pressure round (using the longer case) into a gun that is fairly weak.  That is the reason the .44 Special case was lengthened when Remington developed the .44 Magnum, to prevent .44 Special guns from chambering the Magnum round.  In the old days, longer versions of a basic cartridge were sometimes designated with the word "Long" or even "Extra Long".  That is why I (and some others) will sometimes call the .44 Magnum, ".44 Extra Long Russian" and the .44 Special, ".44 Long Russian". 

Yes, you can shoot .44 Russians in a .44 Special gun.  Similarly, you can shoot either of the shorter cases in a .44 Magnum.  The only difficulty you may run into over time, is you will probably develop leading in the chambers if the chambers aren't cleaned periodically.  Over the long haul, you may develop erosion of the chambers in front of the shorter cartridges. OTOH, it is done all the time.  Like shooting .22 shorts in a .22 LR gun.

[Flint]

Yes, Uberti/Stoeger/Beretta is the only maker.  The 44 special case is 3/16 longer than the Russian and the 44 Colt is 1/16 shorter than the Special.  A 44 Magnum revolver can chamber all 4 cartridges, presuming the 44 Colt is a modern load with a .430 bullet, not a heeled 45.

If you chambered out a 44 Russian to 44 Special in an Uberti #3 Russian it would work as long as the bullet is short enough, A semi-wadcutter or RNFP would not protrude from the end of the cylinder, but a full roundnose 240 grain would be too long.  The cylinder is shorter than the maximum 44 Special overall length as listed in the Lyman Reloading Manual.

You can reload 44 Russian on 44 Mag or Special dies as long as you get a 44 Russian crimp die.

Try 44 Russian, you'll like it.

[mtgelaude]

       Thanks everyone for the answers.  I am glad that ASM did not make any Russian that the collective knows of, which means that quality will not be a MAJOR concern to me at this point, that will very gun to gun.  And I am thinking now that I will probubly still stick with .44 Russian, if I only need some brass and a die or two, I can handle that.  How many of the people here shoot the Russian?  what is your impression of them?  do you like them, not for looks, better that the Schofield, and if so why?  I am only slightly concerned the exadurated knuckle, but I am going to deal with it eaither way.  once again, thanks to everyone, it helped a lot.

[Regret Chancy]

I had a pair of the Navy Arms in 44 Russian and really liked them. The Russian design was a really good point and shoot pistol and the cartridge was very comfortable to shoot. I would not buy them for competition if I was shooting in the gunfighter category. I had a difficult time with my thumb's reaching the hammers while maintaining a solid grip. I am a fan of the 44 Russian round but it is not an easy to find round. Just to clarify that because I know they can be found if you know where to look but you are not going to walk into just any gun store or Wal-mart with a sporting goods department and find them. I discovered that Cimmarron does carry the clone S&W Russian in 45 Colt and (a friend said they offer it in 44WCF but I havent checked) I decided for simplicity that I would pick up a couple in 45 Colt because thats what all my other cowboy action guns are in that caliber. Just my thing but I really did like shooting the 44 Russian cartridge and you probably will too. I may have a couple boxes of once fired brass laying around still and if I do I will give them to you for free if you purchase the pistol. If you are outside Kentucky I will still give them to you but I would need you to pay the shipping.
                                                                             Regret Chancy

[mtgelaude]

Regret Chancy,

Thanks for the offer, I mite take you up on that if I do end up with one.  BTW, I live in California.

The issue of having "a difficult time with my thumb's reaching the hammers while maintaining a solid grip" is the one problem that I am thinking that I mite have, even though I have big hands.  Usually, I shoot with a two handed stance, so that probubly would not be a big problem anyways, but I will just have to get used to the feeling of a new gun.

[Flint]

I shot a CAS match today with my Russians.  They point very well, though I did have a miss or maybe two, I overswung on a sweep.  Anyway, I had smokeless loads, with 205 gr Bear Creek Moly bullets and loaded with Trail Boss Powder.

Starline makes 44 Russian Brass, and several websites sell it, if your local gunshops don't.  Worst case, you can trim 44 Special brass back to Russian length.

Some people have an issue with the Russian's triggerguard spur, but mine, being early production lost the spurs due to welds that didn't hold.  The spurs looked like they were induction welded to a Schofield triggerguard. (They are interchangable), so I polished off the little nubbins left and reblued the spot with a quick torch pass.  I think the later production made a better joint, or cast the spur on, as it should be.  However, I think they are more comfortable to shoot without the spur.

I do like the gun as a shooter better than the Schofield, it feels better in the hand and seems to point better.  The Russian hammer is also better and more authentically shaped than the Schofield, who's hammer looks like it came off an old Marlin 336.

[Irish Dave]

I shoot the .44 Russian regularly and personally find it my favorite revolver cartridge: accurate, comfortable to shoot, easy to reload.

[mtgelaude]

  Well, it took me almost a year, but I finally got my No 3 on it's way  .  Loosing a job and a lack of one can put plans on hold really quick.  It is off an internet auction (I have seen pics and talked to the gunshop in Florida) and it is a Factory show model, meaning that it has only been fired once or twice to test it at the Factory.  It then spent time going around to dealers to show off Uberti Products.  Should be cool, and if I have any problems, I am shure that the brains of the people on here can help me out.

  I now need to get ammunition out of the way.  I am going to use a load that I have in a reloading book, and am kinda leaning towards a 200 Gr slug, with Unique.  What do you guys like in yours?  I am going to reload, I do not think that anyone can afford $36.00 for 50 cartridges. 

  The next order of buisness is a holster rig.  I have searched everything on this board, old and new(including the 250+ "show us your stuff" pages.  Do you russian shooters have any favorite choice of holster?  Pics would be really cool if you got them.

  Everybodys info was very helpfull last September when I was asking around.  Thank you all so much for your help, you gave me the advice that kept the bug in me for a year.  I love this forum, it is so great for the fans of anything Cowboy, History, Leather, or SASS.  (BTW, if the should have been a new post, I appologize  )

[Long Johns Wolf]

I have one of these Uberti Russians and had the chambers lengthened to load & shoot the .44 Colt (.429 dia inside lubed). No problem whatsoever, very positiv ejection. Accuracy is fine.
The reasoning for having that done was purely logistics. Because most of my cowboy guns are chambered either for the .45 or .44 Colt and I did not want to add another cartridge.
Long Johns Wolf

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

If you go to the Alliant Powder website and look under cowboy loads, they have loads for 44 Russian with a 200 grain bullet for Bullseye, Red Dot, American Select, and Unique.

http://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/default.aspx

Hodgdon has loads for a whole bunch of powders including Clays and Trailboss for 165 grain, 200 grain, and 240 grain bullets.

http://data.hodgdon.com/main_menu.asp

Personally I use 1.3CC (about 19.5 grains) of Schuetzen FFg under a Mav-Dutchman 200 grain Big Lube bullet. It is a very mild load in my S&W New Model Number Three or my 44DA.

When you look for dies, RCBS makes a carbide set of their Cowboy Dies that claim they are for both 44 Russian and 44 Special. I did not want to wait for an order, so I grabbed a standard RCBS carbide die set for 44 Magnum/44 Special at a local shop. I had to grind the dickens out of the sizing /decap die to get it to size 44 Russian cases all the way, but it does and that is what I use. I see Lee also makes a carbide 3 die set specifically for 44 Russian.

When I needed a holster for the New Model # 3 I called up El Paso Saddlery. They were very helpful over the phone and I highly recommend them. Even though the gun is not the same as a Schofield, they assured me they probably had 'something out back' that was similar enough. They quoted me six weeks delivery, but it actually showed up in about 4 1/2 weeks. I don't remember now whether it is the Slim Jim model, or the California Slim Jim. It looks more like the California Slim Jim except there is no plug at the bottom, the muzzle is open. I wanted something a little bit fancy for my #3, so I had them do the border stamping. El Paso is not cheap, but you get what you pay for. I am very pleased with the holster, it fits the gun like a glove and the workmanship is first rate.

Obviously with a Russian, your chief concern is going to be the spur on the trigger guard. You also want a holster that allows for the ejector housing under the gun. That is why the Slim Jims may be a good bet. If you call them up, I'll bet they can help you with a holster that will fit your Russian.

http://www.epsaddlery.com/c-10-western.aspx

[Paladin UK]

Ho DJ...........

Booootiful pistola
Whats the mark on  the ejector shroud?? Is it a blemish, or reflection??

Paladin (Whats  nosey curious  ) UK

[Driftwood Johnson]

Whats the mark on  the ejector shroud?? Is it a blemish, or reflection??

Not really sure what you mean. Here is a close up.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

I have one of these Uberti Russians and had the chambers lengthened to load & shoot the .44 Colt (.429 dia inside lubed). No problem whatsoever, very positiv ejection. Accuracy is fine.
The reasoning for having that done was purely logistics. Because most of my cowboy guns are chambered either for the .45 or .44 Colt and I did not want to add another cartridge.
Long Johns Wolf

Wolf;  Do your .44 Colt cases have the .483 rim diameter of the original or the .44 Rus diameter of .514?  If they are the smaller size, how does ejection work?

[Paladin UK]

Ho DJ..................

The muzzle end section, it looks discoloured ta me
Paladin (Whats still nosey curious   ) UK

[Driftwood Johnson]

Nope, just a reflection. How's this?





Or this?

[Long Johns Wolf]

Sir Charles: my .44 Colt cases are either Starline or Black Hills reloads. Dia of the rim is smaller than .44 Special or .44 Russian. .483 could be about right. I have no issues whatsoever ejecting these im my Uberti Russian.
Long Johns Wolf

[Paladin UK]

Fer DJ................

Now thats what I`m takin about!!

Brill pard, a truly Booootiful  BLEMISH FREE pistola!!

Paladin (What lurvs DJ`s Pistola  ) UK