What about cleaning the Uberti 1873 after BP loads?

[McCrower]

You guys helped me with tips for cleaning the Ruger New Vaquero after BP use. But what about the Uberti 1873 rifle..? No need for disassembly there either?

[Coffinmaker]

  Depends 

Nah.  Not the kind inna plastic package.  Depends on yer cartridge.  If your shooting a "dash" caliber, ie:  44-40, 38-40, 32-20, you won't get much if any fouling back into the action.  A teardown is unnecessary.  Swabbing out the bore and chamber is all you will need.

45 Colt.  Entirely different story.  OEM 45 Colt will NOT seal the chamber.  You will be living with excess Blow-By every time you fire the rifle.  EVERY TIME.  Unless you take steps to eliminate the blow-by.  45 Colt cases need to annealed to soften them to expand and seal the chamber.  Annealed cases will eliminate the blow-by.  Next up is to start with 44-40 brass and fire form it to 45 Colt.  That step will also eliminate blow-by.

Some folks will incorrectly suggest Big Heavy bullets and heavy loads.  This may mitigate some of the blow-by but there will still be blow-by.  45 Colt brass simply WILL NOT expand to seal the chamber.

In short, if your shooting Dash calibers, no need to disassemble.  If your shooting straight wall cases your going to need to disassemble.  38Spl cases excepted (maybe).

Play Safe Out There

[cpt dan blodgett]

  Depends 

Nah.  Not the kind inna plastic package.  Depends on yer cartridge.  If your shooting a "dash" caliber, ie:  44-40, 38-40, 32-20, you won't get much if any fouling back into the action.  A teardown is unnecessary.  Swabbing out the bore and chamber is all you will need.

45 Colt.  Entirely different story.  OEM 45 Colt will NOT seal the chamber.  You will be living with excess Blow-By every time you fire the rifle.  EVERY TIME.  Unless you take steps to eliminate the blow-by.  45 Colt cases need to annealed to soften them to expand and seal the chamber.  Annealed cases will eliminate the blow-by.  Next up is to start with 44-40 brass and fire form it to 45 Colt.  That step will also eliminate blow-by.

Some folks will incorrectly suggest Big Heavy bullets and heavy loads.  This may mitigate some of the blow-by but there will still be blow-by.  45 Colt brass simply WILL NOT expand to seal the chamber.

In short, if your shooting Dash calibers, no need to disassemble.  If your shooting straight wall cases your going to need to disassemble.  38Spl cases excepted (maybe).

Play Safe Out There

Fire formed 44-40 cases eliminate blow by?  That just eliminated the myth 44-40s seal chamber due to bottle neck.  I have always maintained it was the thinner thus easier to expand brass cass.  Further evidence is that the necks of 44-40s stay clean indicating the neck seals the chamber.

[Drydock]

Winchester 45 Colt brass seals quite well in my experience.  But even so, the 73 design, which only exposes the lifter block to fouling, works very well with BP.  Avoid SASSLite loads, keep the lifter block lubed, use thinner/annealed brass.  Like the revolvers, I only tear down once a year or so, lubing with Ballistol and cleaning with water.   Unless you can anneal it, avoid Starline brass in the BP 45 Colt.

You should be using soft .454 bullets with large lube capacity.  Larger diameter will aid in chamber sealing, and the lube not only keeps the foulling soft, but helps to expand the case with hydraulic pressure as the softer bullet compresses on ignition/initial acceleration. 

[Dave T]

Isn't it interesting that the cartridges originally designed (over a number of years) for the 1873 Winchester work so well in that action while cartridges it was never chambered for, in the black powder era, and which were never intended for use in lever action rifles are much more problematical.

Just sayin',
Dave

[Drydock]

More a problem of folks never feeling the need to hot rod the WCF calibers, while the 45 Colt has seen more charge experimentation than most any other cartridge.  Manufacturers kept thickening the brass as folks kept raising pressures,  until Dick Casull took it to its ultimate end.

[HamptonBogs45]

Depends on caliber and how you prep your brass. Like others said, the original calibers will seal the chamber and limit blowback. 45 colt you will have tons of blowback if you don't anneal the cases. If you anneal 45 colt they seal the chamber almost as good as the others. I have an 1866carbine made by uberti in 45 colt and shot cases that weren't annealed yesterday actually. They had been reloaded probably 4-5 times with no annealing so the brass is hard and didn't expand at all. After 50 rounds my elevator and basically the whole inside of the receiver was black inside with sludgy fouling. Took a full disassembly to clean. 44-40's case mouth is so thin you don't have to anneal but case life is shorter than 45 colt. My 1873 is in 44-40 and it seals just as good as 45 colt annealed brass without being annealed. Only downside to 44-40 is finding brass. I've only got 100 pieces. Going to a gun show tomorrow to hopefully find more. And here's a video showing how well 45 Colt annealed seals the chamber and stays clean vs 44-40. Fast forward to the 36 minute make.

[HamptonBogs45]

Winchester 45 Colt brass seals quite well in my experience.  But even so, the 73 design, which only exposes the lifter block to fouling, works very well with BP.  Avoid SASSLite loads, keep the lifter block lubed, use thinner/annealed brass.  Like the revolvers, I only tear down once a year or so, lubing with Ballistol and cleaning with water.   Unless you can anneal it, avoid Starline brass in the BP 45 Colt.

You should be using soft .454 bullets with large lube capacity.  Larger diameter will aid in chamber sealing, and the lube not only keeps the foulling soft, but helps to expand the case with hydraulic pressure as the softer bullet compresses on ignition/initial acceleration.

The hole the bolt goes through and the hole for the lifter to go into the rear of the elevator all lets fouling and blowby in if cases are not sealing the chamber. 

[Drydock]

Compared to an open interior design like the Winchester 92 or Marlin 94 it's far less.  My Uberti Henry and 1873 worked and cleaned up as described.

[Navy Six]

Like others have said, the bottleneck cartridges present few problems sealing the chamber. I had a friend who shot his Uberti 1873 in 44-40 in monthly Cowboy shoots. After close to 10 years of use he asked me to help clean the action. We took it apart and my comment was "this was a waste of time". Of course we cleaned things up a bit, but it still looked new inside. One thing my friend did during cleaning sessions was to insert a fired cartridge case into the chamber so no cleaning solution would find its way into the action. I'm sure that helped.

[Cliff Fendley]

Isn't it interesting that the cartridges originally designed (over a number of years) for the 1873 Winchester work so well in that action while cartridges it was never chambered for, in the black powder era, and which were never intended for use in lever action rifles are much more problematical.

Just sayin',
Dave

Yep it makes you think Winchesters designers knew what they were doing when they designed a cartridge for their rifle doesn't it.

I for one only shoot WCF calibers with black powder. OH WAIT! I only own WCF calibers in rifles. Not that I haven't had an occasional 45 Colt come around that I shot some heathen smokeless loads in but I wound up trading them off because life is just simpler running the cartridges that were designed for the guns to begin with regardless of the powder used.

[1961MJS]

Hi
Soooo, if I decide to shoot BP in a .357 Mag Uberti 1873, I should anneal the brass and things will be cleaner. 
Later

[HamptonBogs45]

Hi
Soooo, if I decide to shoot BP in a .357 Mag Uberti 1873, I should anneal the brass and things will be cleaner. 
Later

ive never tried 357 with bp. The brass maybe too thick to expand under low bp pressures even when annealed but I'm not sure. 38 special will seal when annealed.

[Navy Six]

Not an Uberti 73, but I have two Marlin 94s in 38/357 that shoot blackpowder fine. I can't say the chambers are completely sealed, but I've gone through several two day State matches without any cleaning and the guns were still running.

[Abilene]

I just ran my .357 '73 for a two day match.  Usually I would not need to do any maintenance during the match but the humidity was really low, so 2 or 3 times each day I needed to spray the carrier area with moosemilk to keep the carrier from getting sticky.  Then of course the gun needs much more cleaning afterward than a dash caliber or annealed brass.  But since I shoot .38's in both pistols and rifles and both BP and smokeless, and I'm told you don't really want to anneal pistol brass, there's no way I would want to try to keep annealed brass segregated.  Similar with 45 Colt except I just never shoot BP in my 45 rifle, so of course no need to anneal that either.

[greenjoytj]

I have the Winchester 73 the Miroku built version in 45 Colt. It work great.

Lessons I have learn from it are:

Don't use Starline brass unless you have annealed it first.

Better to choose another brand of brass Winchester or Hornady, I still anneal these brand to too.
Very little blow back is seen from annealed cases. What does blow back is easily wiped off the elevator an off the elevator shaft from both ends top and bottom.

The interior of the frame all parts and surfaces there in get a heavy coat of grease applied with a brush.
If fouling did get blown back into the action it will be sitting on a coat of grease.
So far I have never see any fouling on the grease when the side plates have been removed.
But it's a comfort knowing it there.

Popsicle sticks cut on a 45* angle are great to force cleaning patches against the corners of the elevator shaft.

Don't forget to clean and oil inside the magazine tube.