Charter Arms, quality?

When you talk about Charter Arms, it's important to know which iteration of "Charter Arms" you are talking about. The guns built during the first incarnation of the company, distinguishable by the Bridgeport and later Stratford, CT, addresses, were uniformly of good quality. With the later "CHARCO" and today's Charter Arms, quality has been more hit or miss, but examples I have looked at lately seem well built.
 
Hickok45 on YouTube demonstrated a recent vintage .44 Bulldog. I recall 2 misfires (of whatever type). An early .38 Charter snub might be a good very light duty gun if available at a low price. What I see in every Charter is a narrow crane (yoke?) held in place by a screw that works loose constantly. The extractor rod assembly, which also serves as the frontal lockup, is a "Rube Goldberg" mishmash of several parts and springs that is too easily unscrewed. Extraction is uneven due to it's construction. The hand is extremely narrow, less than the width of a J-frame hand. The cylinder latch also loosens and has small parts easily lost. It's action is rough as it has to work against the Rube Goldberg extractor set-up.

To be fair, the fixed sights afforded a good sight picture at a time when the sights on a J-frame were hard to pick up.

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103
 
I bought one of the 44 Bulldogs new in 2010 and since then have had roughly 200 rounds thru it, mostly Winchester Super-X and Hornady stuff. For the $350ish that I paid for it I've been very happy. Fit and finish is fine and it shoots well. When a dedicated 44 Spl alternative is a $700+ S&W, I'm fine with the Charter Arms although if I started handloading or shooting high volume 44 Spl I'd likely go another route.
 
I have a .44 special I keep out in the garage just in case someone with bad intent shows up when I am out there. If someone breaks in and steals it, it wouldn't hurt my feelings as bad as if it were a S&W or Dan Wesson.
 
I bought one of the 44 Bulldogs new in 2010 and since then have had roughly 200 rounds thru it, mostly Winchester Super-X and Hornady stuff. For the $350ish that I paid for it I've been very happy. Fit and finish is fine and it shoots well. When a dedicated 44 Spl alternative is a $700+ S&W, I'm fine with the Charter Arms although if I started handloading or shooting high volume 44 Spl I'd likely go another route.
I've wanted a .44 special for awhile, but just can't afford the prices a nice model 24 or 696 command. I had the chance to buy a 1972 vintage Charter Arms .44 for $300 a couple months+ ago and jumped on it. The previous owner took very good care of it. The only change I made to mine was I bought a set of Pachmyers for it. I think it's a fun gun to shoot.
 

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I own an early Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Special manufactured in Bridgeport, CT. I purchased the revolver new decades ago. The workmanship is very good and it’s been a reliable and accurate shooter. I don’t own a new Charter Arms model so I can’t make a comparison.

 
I shot a friend's .44 Bulldog in the 1980s and was impressed with the accuracy and the increased power of the cartridge over a comparable .38 Special revolver. Recoil was brisk but manageable. Never got one because I was spoiled on S&W quality.

If only S&W would make a 2" or 3" 44 Special revolver they'd eat the Bulldog for lunch.

Maybe if we get lucky we'll see a 3" Model 69.
 
Have a police bulldog, .38 special, +P rated 🙌, 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.
Does everything I require, including shot loads, easy carry, and all of that +P power makes it invincible 😝. Never failed to shoot, sites work for my eyes, so can't complain!
Have box, paperwork, original grips, but never thought of it as a safe queen 😝 , just a nice using gun!
 
I always wanted a Bulldog .44, just like Son of Sam's. I haven't yet found one at a price I'm willing to pay.

Same here. Some nice looking ones on Gun Broker at times. I want one in my hands before I decide to buy it however. Never see any for sale around here.
 
I would like to like one, but sorry I just cant. A family member just bought a new 44 stainless snub, The comment I will make on it is.... for the same money a basic Rock Island 1911
in 45acp would be MUCH better, regards Ernie
 
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just got one of these last week , havent shot it yet, supposed to be beefier and twist rate change for better accuracy....havent shot it yet..im sure at 15 feet it will do what its intended to do

i watched a hickok45 video and the older bulldog is very accurate in his hands..also found a 50 gr bullet pushing close to 2000 FPS

lifetime warranty like most

Charter Arms and Lew Horton Team Up for the Backpacker Revolver | Gun Digest
 
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I had a Charter .44 bulldog back in the 70s. I had some nice wadcutter loads from a company in Austin, TX. When those ran out I traded the gun.
Geoff
Who is a little recoil sensitive, my only 44 is a Ruger Superblackhawk 7 1/2.
 
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.
 
Charter Arms has a quality all their own.
Geoff
Who would take a Taurus, Rossi or Rock Island 200 series first.

I'll take the RI 200 thank you. Took these three to the range the other day. You'd be surprised how the trigger ranked against the other two.... the RI has been flawless....

 
I mentioned last week, in this thread, that I had ordered a Charter Arms Pit Bull 5 shot in .45acp 2 1/2". I just picked it up today and I must say, I am impressed! It's a satin finished SS and weighs in at 23oz. Appears to be very well made and solid, locks up real tight. I don't have a trigger pull scale available right now, but the trigger pull SA seems to be very light, maybe 3 or 3.5lbs. On DA it's light as well, I am thinking about 7/8lbs. The sights work well, but I will place a yellow dot on the front site for faster acquisition. I used once fired, unloaded brass, to try the ejection system and it works. It's simple and it works flawlessly, at least for now. I do not know how well this system works on casings that have been fired in the gun. That info will come later. Anyway, it's a dam nice weapon and so far, I am extremely happy with this purchase.
 

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Final photo related to the above post.

Note: when loading you cannot simply drop the round into the chamber, you must push it in, so the small lip you see in each chamber, snaps into the grove in the casing.
 

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That's a sweet looking 45 Johnnyflake. I've been debating whether I should jump in and try a new Charter Arms. I've never owned or shot an older or newer model. But I have held and inspected a few new Undercover 38's and one Bulldog at a local gun store and they all seem well made. I couldn't put my finger on it. They sort of remind me of a Ruger and a RIA put together. From what I understand the man who started Charter Arms use to work for Ruger. That explains some of the similarities.

I guess the real question is why hasn't S&W ever put out a 44 Spl J frame??? I wouldn't be looking elsewhere if they offered it.
 
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