Uberti 1873 movie gun...rifling gone?

[Hank Dodge]

I acquired a rifle a while back that has raised a question. It is an early Uberti 1873 Winchester clone .44-40 with a 24" octagon barrel. The action looks to have very little actual use, but the rifling in the barrel is gone. The story is that it was a gun used in a movie as a prop gun. I first thought that maybe blanks and poor cleaning may have had a negative effect on things; but even at that, I've seen a bunch of "antique" rifles with stronger rifling left in their bores. What are the chances that someone intentionally removed the rifling to shoot shot cartridges like the old western stage show performers did? Anybody here have any experience with this?

Thanks,

Hank

[jnyork]

Cowboy Action shooters have an event where they shoot balloons from the back of a galloping horse, they use some sort of shot cartridges, maybe it's made for that.

[Rusty]

I've never seen a Cowboy action match where they shoot shot. The mounted events all use handguns in .45 LC and a very heavy charge of black powder. The charge is so heavy that some of the powder acts as ejecta which is what bursts the balloon.

[jnyork]

I only know about it from what I read in an article not more than 3 days ago. Seemed they used some sort of shot like little pellets of frangible material, non-metallic stuff.

[Griff]

45 Colt blanks for all competitions. Some folks make their own for practice, and use the foam used in making flower arrangements. The sanctioning body provides all blanks for competitions where there is a strong likelihood of spectators.

I've read of gallery guns that had the rifling removed and exhibition shooters did also.

[JerryB]

Maybe the artikle should have writ in atuocorecttt, that mite hav helpt.

[Sixgun]

If the rifling was removed mechanically, and it most likely was, it will be worthless for much past 5 yards. The original guns that the exhibition shooters used were choked at the end. I have one.

You would be better off rebarreling it.---6

[Carlsen Highway]

It's a movie armourers gun, it was intended for shooting blanks only.

[Ysabel Kid]

It's a movie armourers gun, it was intended for shooting blanks only.

That would make sense. Probably a lot cheaper from the factory if they don't have to actually rifle a bore. I wonder if it is then classified as a prop and not a genuine firearm? Does it have a S/N?

[marlinman93]

It's a movie armourers gun, it was intended for shooting blanks only.

That would make sense. Probably a lot cheaper from the factory if they don't have to actually rifle a bore. I wonder if it is then classified as a prop and not a genuine firearm? Does it have a S/N?

Most prop guns started life as real guns, and were modified. So a prop gun will have a serial number as it came from the factory. But most prop guns also have the prop company's name stamped on them also to ensure they don't get "lost". My guess is this isn't a prop gun, but likely something some individual modified for his own use.
I hope it was purchased cheap enough to afford a reline, or new barrel?

[Carlsen Highway]

Back in the showman days, wild west shows and suchlike, people like Annie Oakley would do trick shooting using 1873 lever guns with no rifling, shooting shot cartridges, using them to pop balloons and to shatter glass balls that were thrown in the air.

I recommend you grow a large moustache, make up some .44-40 shot shells, and buy some glass balls, and pay neighborhood kids a nickel to throw them in the air and have you explode them rapidly, thereby amazing onlookers at church fairs and barbecue cook offs. At then end, you pass your hat around the crowd.

This all goes well until you come across another fella doing the same routine at a fair, dressed in hoity toity clothes, pretending an accent, and you two start up a rivalry, trying to outdo each other, then one day your girlfriend leaves you for him, taking the secret of your smoothbore '73 with her, and joins his act, and you end up going back to the bottle. You go to a dark place and try to shoot the guy one day while drunk, but your too drunk to remember that your only using light shot, and you dont kill him, but you take off part of his hand, so he is crippled.

You do time for this, hard time, and when you get out, you cant get to shoot anywhere, no barbecue competition, no church fair, no school fundraiser, nothing. You try to pawn the '73 rifle, your only means of making a living, and the last reminder of your happy days, but no one will take it, becaues the bores got no rifling. You wander the country friendless and homeless, living rough, shooting squirrels in the woods for food.
One day out in the country you rescue a widow woman from a cottonmouth snake by shooting it out of the air when it tries to drop on her head from a tree, and she takes you in, and you quit the bottle and find the lord again, and settle down helping her sharecrop on a small patch of dirt. But then the landowner tries to take it from her, and diverts the water so the cotton dies, and she is in danger of losing everything, and there is nothing you can do, but she doesnt hold it against you. She has lived hard and is willing to build a life somewhere else.
The landowner wants her land because the carnival has come to town, you have to hire out as a hand to construct it on the same land the widow used to farm, its all you two can do for money, but while you are working there you see your old nemesis is shooting once more, shooting trick shots in the carnival with a special stocked rifle for his crippled hand.
You are clean and sober, and no longer have your moustache, and your ex girlfriend doesn't recognise you, but when she does she breaks down, she has aged beyond her years and lost her looks, and she begs your forgiveness, because your shooting nemesis is an abusive monster, who oppresses her and ruined her life and she cannot escape him. There is a shooting competition at the carnival, with the prize of a full $100 cash money to the winner. It’s enough to save the farm, to win it would break your enemy, and your ex girlffriend would be free, it would give you your life back.
You go back and tell the widow woman what you’re going to do, you’re going to win that shooting competition. She says nothing. But she helps you reload a bunch of .44 shotshells overnight, because shes a good woman.
On the day of the big shoot off, you go there with your farming clothes, your don’t have any fancy display costumes anymore, and up against the finery of your enemy, you don’t look like much. When you meet up with him for the first time, he doesn’t recognise you at first, and then grim hate settles across his feature.
“How do, Boston Bob,”you say. “”I expect you want to avenge your hand.”
“I expect I will, Hank Dodge” he says.
He tells you about how crippling that hand destroyed his nerve and he had to get it back by competition shooting shows in Japan, but the sake got to him, and the hate brewed and it ruined his only romance which was your exgirlfirend, because he couldn’t be the man he wanted to be.
Ï ain’t responsible for your lovelife,” you say,””But I will be responsible for you losing this here shooting competition.”
And so the mayor opens the shooting competition, and the people all come because word of the rivalry has become legend amongst the old timers, and even the children want to see something they never expected to see in their lifetime.
And so you start shooting, glass balls being tossed in the air, the ex girlfriend throwing for him and the widow woman throwing for you.
You start off ragged, unusued to pressure, but you don’t miss, and he is as cold as an axe head, never missing either. You shoot all afternoon, glass ball after glass ball, shot after shot, neither of you missing, because both of you have got smooth bore barrels and are shooting shot. The shooting goes into the night, lit by lanterns, and the women have to take turns with strangers in the crowd to rest their throwing arms, but still you both keep shooting, neither of you missing a shot, glass shards piling up
Andyou make it through the night, never missing, and by dawn you cant hardly lift a rifle, or aim it steady, not that you need to because of the shotshells in a smooth bore, and he isnt much better, but he is better, you see. He is just as tired as you and shaking just as much. But then he calls for a break, and he goes out and gets changed into an even spanglier outfit with even more shiny bits, and an even redder kneckerchief, and waxes his beard and mustaches, and then he looks fresh, and you realise you might never beat him, and he picks up that rifle, steady as gibralter, and he calls "throw!"and shoots the first glass ball of the day to pieces.
The widow woman comes to you and tells you you dont have to carry on, if you shoot anymore, you will ruin your shooting eye for the rest of your days, and its not worth it. But you push her slowly back and lift your rifle and call to her "Throw!" But she does not.
""I will not."" She says, and drops the glass ball to the ground, and she leaves. You watch her go, and you feel the rage, the rage you felt at your exgirlfriend for leaving you, at Boston Bob for being better than you, at the snake and the landowner, and you gesture to the crowd, "Somebody! Throw!" But no one steps forward. No one moves. "Throw, I tell you," you shout, but no one says anything. Some people begin to slowly leave. The mayor is behind you now and he says, "Hank, maybe you should stop now. Go and find your woman."
"darn you , you say, bring me some whiskey, I will beat this sunavabitch yet"
And you point the gun on the nearest mexican, and force him to throw the ball. And you shoot. And you miss. And the ball falls into the dust, unbroken. There is silence in the crowd. Boston Bob, slowly stands, and unloads his rifle. He walks away to his wagon
"Throw it again," you tell the mexican. The man throws it for you again, low and easy and you miss it again. The crowd leaves and the Mayor goes, and Boston Bob is the only one left, your exgirlfreind is in the wagon.
Bob says, ""It's just missing, Dodge, you been doing it all your life.""
And then you both hear the shot and your exgirlfriend shoots Boston Bob in the back of the head with his own rifle. "I always loved you Hank" she cries as they tie her and throw her over a horse.
When you get back to the shack where the widow woman is, she is there. She doesnt ask you how the competition went and you dont tell her, you just say that your going to be home now for now on, wherever that might be, your shooting days are over, smoothbore or rifled.
She says it might as well be here, and you ask, what do you mean, and she tells you how she told the story of your trick shooting days to the landowner before the competition, and got him convinced you were the best shot west of the Mississippi, and the landowner had bet his land on you winning. Now because you lost, she and you own it all.
You asked her why she didnt believe that you would win, and she tells you that you didnt need to win as much as Bob did, because you had her.
You go inside and you hang that smoothbore '73 rifle over the fireplace. It stays there for many years.

[JerryB]

Now is that really where this rifle came from?????

[fordwannabe]

Uhmm holy thread drift Batman! Entertaining as all get out but Wow. Too much coffee CH?

[vancelw]

I didn't know they grew poppies in Oz....

[Carlsen Highway]

The movie rights are available