About a year and a half ago I stopped in a local gun shop that I hadn't been to for several years. It had moved to a new location that was more accessible and I wanted to see what they had. In the used gun case was a pair of top break Uberti Model 3 Russians in .44 Russian, the kind with the finger hook on the trigger guard. They were pretty reasonably priced and it was my guess that someone had gotten them with cowboy action shooting in mind, and it didn't work out for them. I don't know how long they had been in the case before I saw them.
There they sat for months, until one day one of them was gone. The other one stayed in the case for maybe a year and kept tempting me and eventually, it was also gone.
Well now I was kicking myself for letting two chances at an uncommon revolver get away. That was maybe six months ago. So yesterday I was making a stop into the store at lunchtime and reminiscing about the one that got away, and thinking how I had considered noting how long it'd been there and offering fifty bucks less than their asking price. Well, I looked in the used gun case and it was back. The price on the tag was fifty bucks less than it had been. Dang, they called my bluff!
I asked the clerk about it and he said that someone had put it on layaway and never followed through. I bought it. No box but it looks like new, probably unfired. Procrastination worked out for me this time!
By coincidence there is an article by Mike Venturino in the April 2012 Handloader magazine, about loading the .44 Russian for his Uberti Model 3 Russian. He says that the inscription on top of the barrel translates as, "The Third Russian Gun-Making Factory."
There they sat for months, until one day one of them was gone. The other one stayed in the case for maybe a year and kept tempting me and eventually, it was also gone.
Well now I was kicking myself for letting two chances at an uncommon revolver get away. That was maybe six months ago. So yesterday I was making a stop into the store at lunchtime and reminiscing about the one that got away, and thinking how I had considered noting how long it'd been there and offering fifty bucks less than their asking price. Well, I looked in the used gun case and it was back. The price on the tag was fifty bucks less than it had been. Dang, they called my bluff!
I asked the clerk about it and he said that someone had put it on layaway and never followed through. I bought it. No box but it looks like new, probably unfired. Procrastination worked out for me this time!
By coincidence there is an article by Mike Venturino in the April 2012 Handloader magazine, about loading the .44 Russian for his Uberti Model 3 Russian. He says that the inscription on top of the barrel translates as, "The Third Russian Gun-Making Factory."
