Anyone have an Uberti 1885? How is the quality? I am looking for a black powder hunting rifle and considering one of these.
Dozer

Don't have an Uberti, but Mike Venturino fairly recently did a write-up on them. Now, I usually take gunwriters with a grain-of-salt, but Venturino seems to choose not to write about a firearm if he doesn't like it somewhat. In a past article on Sharps rifles he wrote that some rifles were substandard and he would pass on them.
Noted by their omission were some poor repros like Pedretti, etc.

He thought the Uberti was a good value. Hopefully someone with hands-on can chime in.

I have had one for about a month. Pretty good shooter and appears to be well made. Have always been facinated by 45-70's. I plan on shooting deer next year with it. One word of warning. If you plan to install a tang sight, go with Marbles. It is high quality and well built. Uberti's tang screws are metric though, and I had to take it to a gun smith for modification to get the thing to fit. It now is an absolute beauty. One last thing, Uberti is selling rifles with slight blemishes at a good discount. My cost me $495. Hurry though, I am sure they won't last.

I don't own one either, but on the BPCR web sight there was (I don't know if it stil is because I read it a couple of years ago) and there was an excellent article in Single Shot Exchange. They pretty much had the same things to say.

Pluses: Good price for decent rifle. Very much historically accuratge in almost every detail insofar as the visual appeal. Decent accuracy. An opportunity to own a piece of history at a reasonable price.

Downsides: Steels are inferior to modern steels (even though they equal or exceed the steels of teh last century). Thus, they can't be hotroded beyond blackpowder or lowest Sammi spec. pressures for those calibers (of which, I believe, 45-70 is the largest). Present chambers are poor at best (probably because of metric tooling in Europe). These are not match guns, don't expect them to shoot like ones. Interior parts (triggers, hammer sears, springs) are not very hard. Don't monkey w/ them to try and lighten them.

In short, if you want a gun for blasting, casual shooting, hunting, or even cowboy action. They are great. If you looking for a serious BPCR competition gun, you must move up to a higher level of quality and manufacture.

Can anyone answer a question for me? I looked at the 1885 copies at the Shot Show in Vegas a couple of years ago and it seemed they were the ones where you worked the lever and chambered the round and THEN cocked the hammer. In other words the hammer did not cock on the lever. Kinda like my Wickliff. These were at a booth from Fredicksburg Texas I believe. Are the Ubertis the same? Appreciate your help. Aloha, Mark[in Or]