Charter Pitbull .45ACP Review w/range report
Went and plunked down $15 and signed the papers, so the Pitbull .45 is now my own.
First impression was - bigger than I expected, but not huge. More on that after a bit.
The revolver is hugely more than "not bad". Its quite good. As someone who's cut metal lots, its pretty easy for me to pick up on spotty work that's been covered up with bead blasting. None of that here. Parts finish externally is quite good. The bead blast finish is quite fine, appears to be even, well executed, very fine in texture. Finer than the beaded surfaces on, say, a Kahr slide. To be honest, the beaded finish is there to hide small irregularities, so they don't need to fix every little mark. So, I'm sure there are some stray marks there...
Mechanical - high marks. Starting up front - muzzle crown is nicely done, stands up to scrutiny under a 7x loupe. Rifling not evaluated, as the bore has some crud in it from test firing. Barrel (and front sight) are nice and plumb, not canted. Crane locks up tight. Cylinder gap is even, not measured, but hey... its not huge and neither is it dragging, so its ok in my book. It looks good. Chambers are smooth. Forcing cone is a bit dirty so I can't really judge it fully, but... it looks evenly cut. Firing pin protrusion, not measured, but looks good, not shallow nor a primer piercer either. Rear sight notch is centered, square and deep. Cylinder endshake is nil. Cylinder lockup - which must be evaluated with the trigger pulled back as if firing - is as tight as any of my other revolvers, except maybe the Vaquero which is exceptionally tight. Checkering on the hammer is fine, but sharp and well done.
Trigger pull. DA is not the terrible Charter pull I had imagined it would be. It feels just about the same as my dead stock S&W 640 (Jframe/.357). The Smith and the Charter (and most Ruger's) have a rather blunt trigger, leaving a bit of a corner that my index finger finds objectionable if I use the wrap around double action finger placement. That I can get rid of in a few seconds with a small file (and some tape for protection on the trigger guard). Smoothness... you feel more going on than a J frame, about the same as an L frame (bypassing K). You're spinning a bit of weight with that .45ACP cylinder and you feel its start and stop and latch moving. I dont think that can be helped much. SA is perfect. I mean just perfect. Light, imperceptible creep. Its gotta be 3lbs dead even. Zero complaints there. The hammer does not push off (as some S&W's do).
Grips are decent manly size, and fit the frame well with no shake. Engravings (stamping actually) is even, deep and crisp. The serial number is...apparently some very nice machine engraving (probably automatically done).
Loading and unloading rimless ammo. Its not just a "drop it in" sort of affair. You have to push the cartridge down into the chamber. The springs in the extractor will drag a little on the walls of the cartridge when you do this... so you need to push them home. Gravity is not enough to get 'em seated fully. One nice whack on the ejector rod and out come the empties. I had the usual "one round didn't fall out" since it was partly obscured by the grip when ejecting. An empty would have fallen free. The loaded round being longer... it needed to go back further, and the grip is there. No big deal.
The book says use brass case, not aluminum or steel. Also says +P is not recommended, since it doesn't work well in a 2.5 inch barrel anyway. Can't comment to that last part... just passing along what they say.
And they say very little... the instructions are SPARSE at best.
The case is ok, nothing special. It came with what was the cheeziest gun lock I've ever seen. Looked like red candy, and was basically a screw clamp for the trigger guard, with a funky pronged screwdriver/disk for making it work. I immediately lost it on purpose.
All in all... I''m WAY IMPRESSED, and very pleased with this .45ACP revolver.
Some bad points - very few. The corner of the trigger. That's me, not the gun. Given any type of finger, and any type of trigger curvature and finish... I seem to find the one's that have corners that are not quite to my liking. Its a non issue in defensive duty, only a pain when you're firing double action over and over again, as in... when dry firing a new revolver!
I had a small issue that was self correcting. The cylinder latch didn't quite reset. The part I'm talking about is the "bolt" as some call it, or latch, that keeps the cylinder from turning and locks it into position so a chamber is lined up with the barrel. The cylinder would lock up tight. The latch wasn't unlatching. What that turned out to be was some rough finish (I'm guessing), or crud. The "fix" was to open the cylinder, pull back the cylinder release and dry fire while allowing the trigger to "snap" back forward a few times. Totally fixed. Speaking about open cylinder dry firing, you can feel how smooth the trigger is when doing that. Any disruption of that smooth pull is from the cylinder having to swing around to the next chamber.
And finally the one cosmetic flaw, which i will not correct. Looks there was a tiny bit of flash/swarf left on one of the frame holes, which took on the look of a raised, but flat, ring when the cross pin was put in and whacked home. Very minor. I could fix this by driving out the pin, then removing the flashing. I won't. Its too hard to see and I didn't even notice until I had the eyeloupe out.
Back the size thing. It feels like a K frame. Just barely peeks out of my jean's pocket. I'm ok with the size, seems necessary to the design.
And there ya have it. More as it comes... pictures later... or more likely, tomorrow sometime.
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