I have a beautiful, tight, 7 1/2 inch saa from us firearms.. I called them before i ordered the gun from a local dealer and asked simply "If the gun does not have cylinder barrel alignment will you fix it?" Gary at usfirearms said yes.. I recived the gun and it was off quite a bit, i cant measure that but i could see the cylinder face looking down the barrel, to me thats out of alignment.. If you cant see a fired case edge thats .005 out of aliingment this was a couple thousands or more than that aprox,.. i retuned it and they went to work trying to please me, and said they put three barrels on it and its shooting one hole groups at 30 feet.. i got it back about 5 weeks later that they said would take 2 weeks( not really a problem there) and the guns alingment looked like half of the alinment problem was fixed.. One fired case side cannot be seen so thats appox .005 off (cylinder to bore alignment).. the gun started off shooting very well, but was leading.. I discovered the cylinder throats were very rough, with deep threadding marks, requireing rotoary action to remove the lead,.. It took me about 30-40 minutes last night with brush that is totally worn out now, drill, and rod to get about 90 percent of the lead out after a 60 round shooting session.. I decided to slug the barrel and throat to see if there is a way to get the right size diameter bullet to stop the leading. My measuing is poor, but have mitutoyu and sterret gear. slugging the cylinder and bore the cylinder throat is in the .452 range and at the frame pinch the barrel is about .448. Im guessing they put a small diameter barrel on it to "fix" the alignment problem? this with the rough cylinder throat seems to expain why the gun shoots unusually high and bucks more than my other .45s at 7.5 grains of unique.. .. I purchased this gun to be my "best" .45 and long range saa.Costing in the 900 dollar range.. It has not begun to stand up to such features, has been into the factory once, and they wont return my calls.. Im beginning to want my money back.. Im beginning to think they are chasing the monkey back there with problems and returns, and someting just doesnt seem right..They did say they were gearing up for a lever action rifle, and its taking alot of thier time. Ive edited this several times to hold back my remarks that show my frustration. .. thanks for your help, dave

Shody craftsmanship aside, assuming there is any, these guns are advertised as faithful reproductions of guns built on an 1800's era design. Being somewhat familiar with guns of that era, it sounds too me like you got a faithful reproduction, which, if being faithful to the original design, will include both it's strengths and weakness's, which will include the flaws of the design.

If you are a cowboy and you are standing in the center of a dusty cow town street at high noon with your trusty six shooter, that last thing you need is a little dirt interfering with the operation of the piece. This degree of reliability requires liberal tolerances between moving parts, and liberal tolerances do not make for all that great of accuracy.

I don't know what your gun is, or, isn't doing for you, but maybe you should sell it and get one of Freedom Arms precision revolvers.


FWIW, bores on revolvers are seldom straight. That's one of the reasons why they enlarge the breech end of the barrel. So as the bullet jumps the gap and enters the barrel, what little missalignment there is, won't be as obvious.

"Forty shots rang out, forty people fell, Patty and the killer missed each other but they blew the town to hell." Gotta love those old western six shooters!

I finnaly got ahold of the factory usfirearms, and they are cooperating with me 100 percent.. As previously mentioned the early manufactureing process is most of the problem. the Production forman informed me that the csee hardening tends to warp the frame, and the cllinder throats are rolled not reamed after drilling.. Why it is shooting high is a mystery to everyone. but they are willing to custom make me a higher front sight.. THe rolled portion of the cylinder is before the scoring marks in the cylinder throat which may explain the stubborn accuracy ruining leading in the cylinder.. this phenominom may or may not supposed to be there. He took his time expaining all this to me and they are doing a tremendous job on these guns.. So what im wanting, probably unfairly, is a gun that looks and feels like a 1920s saa, and has a 1960s accuracy job.. It is a problem that i share with other saa shooters that want lead bullet accuracy from this type of firearm.. they may not even have a cylinder reamer.. Its not they way they were orriginaly built ... Dave

FWIW I've owned a few SAA clones.....and I want to be careful to not paint them all with a single brush as I've not had experience with the actual Colt or all of the clones but of the ones I've owned I'd rate them as poor at best. One of them actually had a loose barrel as I received it.....it turned off in my hands!!!!

The only SAA clne or similar singe action I've owned that really was worthy of the money is the Ruger Vaquero......I'm no Ruger fan but they make a helluva good SAA sixgun....best I've ever owned and if I ever own another revolver it'll be a Ruger!