I have had four Charter Arms revolvers, three .44 Special Bulldogs and one .38 Special Undercover, all built (and bought new by me) by the original company back in the 1976-1980 era.
They were designed and built to a price point at least 33% below S&W's equivalent gun. You get what you pay for.
The Bulldogs are unique. My first one, bought Jan. 1976, was the gun I learned both how to handload .44 Special, and how to overload your handloads such that they stretched the topstrap and pounded a crater around the bolt face where the smacked firing pin came through to ignite the primer. A full pound of Unique, Speer swaged 240 grain SWCs and hardcast 250 grain SWCs beat the gun to death eventually, all preventable by me.
I was more circumspect with the second and third Bulldogs, limiting them to factory ammo and handloads that duplicated their pressure. Both of those guns held up fairly well, with some caveats.
All three Bulldogs key-holed SWC bullets at 25 yards, some leaving a perfect profile of the bullet punched through the target. I wrote a letter to charter and they cheerfully acknowledged that this often happened, and that because the bullets were handloads, my Charter Arms warranty was void! "But thank you for buying Charter Arms!"
Day-to-day shortcomings included the screw that formed the bolt, which was pushed back out of the cylinder window by the rear end of the ejector rod when the cylinder was closed, would unscrew and keep the ejector rod from locking the cylinder closed in the frame. You had to loc-tite this screw into the proper depth in the piece into which the thumb latch was screwed onto.
That thumb latch chewed the thumb up when shooting.
There was a small plastic washer that went on the screw that went through the bottom of the yoke or crane and then into the frame, which helped keep the face of the cylinder back away from the rear end of the barrel. This washer flattened out, allowing the cylinder to bang on the forcing cone. Watch that. In fact, you had to watch and tighten all of the screws in/on the gun.
I did like the relatively (compared to a Chief Special) big blocky fixed sights on the Charters.
My ex-wife took the .38 when she left. One of the other good Bulldogs I sold, the junked one I sold cheaply to a fellow who thought he could fix it, and I still have the third one. It fits any good holster made for a 3 inch Colt Detective Special.
Balancing out their quality shortcomings, they are inexpensive. If you don't expect much from them, they should be okay.
, 2" barrel, 6 shot, Stratford Ct., bought in 1979. Wanted a 4" barrel, but the 2" was available and has worked better for my need. All steel, nice CCH on hammer. Only change from factory was Pachmeyer grippers, which really improved things. About K frame size, and trigger compares to a nice K frame trigger. 
. Never failed to shoot, sites work for my eyes, so can't complain! 
