Uberti .44 Magnum

John found the Callahan shot .44 Specials exceptionally

Several things happened to make the .44 Magnum more acceptable. Many reloaders learned to start low and work up to full-house magnum loads. Gripmakers offered custom stocks to help minimize felt recoil. Ruger took a look at their .44 Blackhawk and added more weight in the form of a longer barrel, un-fluted cylinder and an all-steel Dragoon-sized grip frame. Dan Wesson and Ruger brought out double-action sixguns larger and heavier than the original Smith & Wesson and Smith & Wesson also started adding heavy under lugged barrels to their .44 Magnum, all of which help minimize felt recoil.

All of these things helped, however, the greatest selling aid for the .44 Magnum occurred in the early 1970’s, which brings us to the test .44 Magnum sixgun at hand. Uberti is now producing the Callahan .44 Magnum. Now why in the world would an Italian maker of single-action sixguns be producing one with an Irish name?

The .44 Magnum from several manufacturers has always been an accurate and powerful sixgun and capable of taking any four-legged creature on the planet. However, what really sold the public on the .44 Magnum was Callahan — San Francisco Detective Harry Callahan, better known as Dirty Harry. Yes, it was actually Clint Eastwood’s portrayal of Dirty Harry which caused an unreal demand for .44 Magnums, to the point those who really wanted them for shooting had to pay black-market prices all through the 1970’s.

Now we have Uberti offering their Callahan Target Model .44 Magnum. It may be a stretch to attach the Callahan name to a single-action sixgun when Dirty Harry carried a double-action Smith & Wesson; however, it’s no stretch to say this latest .44 Magnum is an excellent sixgun no matter what the name.

The Callahan is no slouch with full-power .44 Magnum loads!

Callahan Target Model

The .44 Magnum cartridge chambered in sixguns is one of the all-time great success stories. However, it did not begin that way. Elmer Keith was ecstatic about the new Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum and said the recoil “would not bother a seasoned sixgunner.” Meanwhile General Hatcher of the NRA said shooting it was like getting hit in the palm of the hand with a baseball bat. For most shooters the actual feeling was somewhere in between. It was not unusual in those early days to find very slightly used .44 Magnum sixguns for sale along with a box of cartridges with six, or less, rounds being fired. I bought such a Ruger Flat-Top Blackhawk and a box of .44 Magnum rounds with six empties and 44 rounds still loaded.

The .44 Magnum was not an immediate success for several reasons. One of the major reasons, of course, was the tremendous recoil offered at a time when the heaviest handguns available fired the .357 Magnum, the .45 ACP and the .45 Colt. Add to this the price tag, which for me was four weeks take-home pay. The Smith & Wesson sold for almost double the price of a brand-new Colt Government Model .45 ACP, which everyone knew then was all the recoil any mere mortal could really handle.

Big Differences

My first experience with an Uberti Target Model sixgun was a 71/2″ .357 Magnum which was imported by Iver Johnson 40 years ago. At the time, I wanted a Colt New Frontier badly, however I could not afford it so I went with a sixgun costing less — much less. In the process I learned cheap is almost always too expensive and I didn’t keep that imitation New Frontier very long.

The latest Target Model from Uberti is as far removed from my first example as politicians are from “I cannot tell a lie.” That long-ago example was mediocre as it’s finish, with its dull blue and supposedly case-colored mainframe. The Callahan is beautifully finished in a very deep blue, including the mainframe. The top of the frame is flat-topped with the sides and front edges slightly rounded to prevent holster wear. The flat-top frame is fitted with a fully adjustable rear sight for both elevation and windage.

The top of the frame is also drilled and tapped, which I assume is for scope mounting. The front sight is on a ramp with both the back edge of the ramp and the back of the sight serrated to cut down glare. The ramp is held to the heavy barrel with a screw and the front blade enters from the front of the ramp and can be replaced with a taller or shorter sight. The barrel length is 6″ and although I had requested a 71/2″ barrel I like the way this one looks, balances and shoots.

Although equipped with a “Swiss Safety” using the cylinder base pin, John was most comfortable using it as a 5-shooter.

Classic Function

The 6-shot cylinder is heavy and unfluted, and the Callahan works like a traditional single-action. There is no transfer bar and the hammer is placed in the half-cock position, releasing the cylinder to rotate. The loading gate is opened and cartridges may be inserted into the cylinder or removed with the ejector rod. One of my pet peeves with sixguns which have a transfer bar safety is the fact the loading gate is often hard to open, but the Callahan’s loading gate works smoothly and easily.

There has to be a safety for such a revolver to be imported and the Callahan has a “Swiss Safety.”

This consists of a longer than normal cylinder pin with two notches at the front end. When the back notch is locked in place this sixgun works in the normal way, however with the front notch engaged the pin sticks back far enough to prevent the firing pin on the hammer going far enough forward to contact the primer. With the Swiss Safety so engaged the Callahan is safe to carry with six rounds. For my use I will carry it with only five rounds and the hammer down on an empty. I cannot see trying to move the cylinder pin forward in an emergency so one less round seems a lot more appealing.

Recoil from the Colt Single Action Army-style grip frame in a .44 Magnum is not very pleasant. Ruger addressed this with their Super Blackhawk Dragoon-style grip frame in 1959. With its square back triggerguard most shooters find felt recoil is reduced significantly — most shooters, not me. As bad as recoil was and is with the Colt Single Action Army-style I get nailed worse with the square back triggerguard. For me it would have been better if Ruger had skipped past the Colt 1848 square-backed Dragoon triggerguard and instead used the grip frame found on the 1860 Army. This grip frame is longer and straighter along the back than the 1851 Navy grip frame which was incorporated into the 1873 Colt Single Action. Uberti is on my side and they equipped the .44 Magnum Callahan Target with an 1860 grip frame. This not only helps to minimize felt recoil for me, but I can also wrap all three fingers around the front strap.

The heavy top strap of the .44 Magnum Callahan is fitted with an adjustable rear sight, mated to an excellent ramped front.

Improvements

As it came to me this .44 Magnum single-action had a trigger pull just over 5 pounds. By placing a rubber washer between the mainspring and the grip frame it came down to a more easily manageable 31/2 pounds. Before I started testing the action was quite gritty, however it has smoothed out with use.

There are two things which need to be fixed, both of which are so simple even I can do it. The front sight is taller than it needs to be causing the point of impact to be several inches below the point of aim unless the rear sight is raised significantly. I do not like to do this is as there is always a chance the elevation screw will take off for parts unknown. The easy fix is to take a little off the top of the front sight blade with a few file strokes so it is sighted in with the rear sight all the way down and which can then be raised if desired.

The grips on the 1860-style grip frame are one piece walnut and fairly well fitted. Quite often 1-piece grips, or 2-piece for that matter, are not fitted very well to the back of the frame; these are done quite well. The front of the grips at the bottom front edge of the grip frame overlap ever so slightly and it will not take too much work with a piece of sand paper to remove that sharp edge.

I tested the Uberti Callahan with both handloads and factory loads, with the latter including .44 Russian, .44 Colt, .44 Special and .44 Magnum. I had planned to use several .44 Magnum loads assembled with the true Keith bullet not a so-called Keith-style SWC bullet. However, the cylinder of the Callahan is too short to accept .44 Magnum loads with true Keith bullets. For the real Keith bullet to be used requires it to be crimped over the front band in .44 Magnum cases or loaded normally in .44 Special cases. Neither of these options are any handicap.

A Shooter

This .44 sixgun shot exceptionally well, with most groups being around 1″, some even less, for five shots at 20 yards. The Black Hills .44 Colt and .44 Russian loads are extremely pleasant shooting in this relatively heavy 42-ounce sixgun, with their muzzle velocities just over 600 fps. Buffalo Bore’s Heavy .44 Special with a 255-gr. LBT bullet clocks out at well over 1,100 fps and groups in just slightly over 1″. My most-used whitetail deer load is the Black Hills .44 Magnum 240 JHP clocking out at just under 1,250 and grouping five shots in 13/8″. The fastest shooting load tried, the Hornady 180-gr. XTP-JHP clocked out at 1,600 fps and grouped it shots into close to 1″ too. This is also an excellent hunting load four deer-size game.

Overall I was very impressed with the shootability of the Callahan. The cylinder chamber mouths miked out at a uniform 0.429″ and I was surprised to find the Callahan shot bullets sized to 0.429″, 0.430″ and 0.431″ all very well. Shooters often ask if shorter cartridges such as the .38 Special in the .357 Magnum and .44 Special in the .44 Magnum will shoot accurately. The answer is always the same: “You won’t know until you try.” I tried, and this .44 Magnum shot all four .44 cartridges accurately in spite of their differing lengths.

The Uberti Callahan Target Model .44 Magnum is typical of currently produced sixguns from this well-established Italian manufacturer. It’s well fitted, the cylinder locks up very tightly, and well finished with its deep blue and walnut stocks. Three screws in the side of the frame identify this as a traditionally operated single-action sixgun.

For those who for would prefer fixed sights over adjustable sights, the Callahan is also offered with Colt Single Action-style sights. Whichever iteration is chosen the grip frame remains the 1860-style.

I’ve never understood why this grip frame has not been optional on more single-actions, especially from domestic manufacturers. Uberti did it right. These days I rarely need the power of full house .44 Magnum loads, however that’s no loss, as my favored .44 Special loads shoot just fine in the Callahan.

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