AllOutdoor Review: The Uberti 1862 Police Revolver
I have covered the history of the Colt 1862 Police and its place in the Colt percussion revolver lineage in a four-part Curious Relics series right here on AllOutdoor. All four parts will be live by the time you’re reading this, so if you want the full backstory on what this Uberti 1862 Police is reproducing, those articles are linked below. For this piece, we’re talking about the gun itself.
Uberti Coverage on AllOutdoor:
- Curious Relics #134: Last Gun Sam Colt Made – Colt 1862 Police Part I
- Curious Relics #135: Two Guns, One Name – The Colt 1862 Police Part II
- Curious Relics #136: By the Numbers – The Colt 1862 Police Part III
- Curious Relics #137: Little Colt Speaks – Colt 1862 Police Part IV
- Curious Relics #132: The Richards-Mason Conversion Part I
- Curious Relics #133: Richards-Mason Conversion Part II – To The Range
Specifications: Uberti 1862 Police Revolver
The Uberti 1862 Police is a reproduction of the Colt 1862 Police revolver, a five-shot .36 caliber percussion revolver that was among the last designs Sam Colt saw into production. Uberti’s version is currently offered in a single configuration with a 5.5″ barrel. The frame is case-hardened steel, the barrel and cylinder are blued, and the trigger guard and backstrap are brass. The grip is a one-piece walnut.
- Caliber: .36
- Action: Single-Action Percussion Revolver
- Barrel Length: 5.5″
- Cylinder: 5-shot, half-fluted
- Frame Finish: Case-Hardened
- Barrel Finish: Blued
- Trigger Guard: Brass
- Backstrap: Brass
- Grip: One-piece Walnut
- Twist Rate: 1:32 LH
- Overall Length: 9.5″
- Weight: 1.5 lbs
- MSRP: $529
The $529 MSRP is on the slightly higher end for a reproduction percussion revolver, and one look at the finish quality tells you where that money went. The bluing is deep and dark, the case hardening shows real color, and the overall fit and finish punch well above the price point. It looks like it should cost more.
First Look: Uberti 1862 Police Revolver
Out of the box, this gun is genuinely pretty. The bluing on the barrel is rich in a way that isn’t always a given at this price. The one-piece walnut grip felt slightly gummy from factory oil, but a couple drops of CLP cleared that up immediately. Barely worth mentioning.
Before shooting, yours truly made sure the gun could be field stripped down to its major components quickly if needed. That turned out to be a smart move, and I’ll explain why shortly.
The 1862 Police is a scaled-down 1860 Army on a pocket-size frame. In hand it almost feels like a toy at first. That takes a beat to get used to. Once you adjust expectations it’s actually a comfortable gun to hold, just surprisingly small. Put it in context of what it was designed for, a concealed carry revolver in the 1860s, and the size makes perfect sense.
Range Time: Uberti 1862 Police Revolver
Loading takes the same patience any cap and ball revolver asks for. The .375 round ball shaved lead cleanly on the way in. Yours truly ran Pyrodex P within the range the manual recommends, starting near the lower end of that window. In hindsight, working toward the middle would have been better. With the lighter charge, the powder column wasn’t quite tall enough to give the ram a solid wall at the end of the stroke. The ball seated fine with no meaningful air gap, but the seating wasn’t as positive as it should be. A larger powder measure spout next time fixes that.
I also ran homemade paper cartridges loaded with the same Pyrodex P charge, rolled with cigarette paper on a 3D-printed jig. Performance was about the same either way. The paper cartridge method speeds up reloading and suits a gun like this well.
On caps: I started with a can of old Remington #10s, at least 15 years old by the look of them. They seated very tight on the nipples and would not fire. That’s where the field strip prep paid off. Getting those stuck caps off safely meant taking things apart at the range, which went fine because I was ready for it. Switching to fresh Remington #10s improved things considerably.
Cap jams still happened with the fresh caps. Spent caps and fragments found their way into the action a handful of times and required clearing. This is a characteristic of Colt-pattern percussion revolvers, not a mark against the Uberti specifically. The design pre-dates most of the engineering fixes later revolvers would introduce to manage cap debris. A couple of misfires also came up, both from caps I hadn’t fully seated. That’s on the shooter, not the gun. No chain fires and no concerns about chain fires. I skipped greasing over the chamber mouths because it was a very hot day and what I brought had gone essentially liquid. The lead ring from ball seating handled it fine.
The creeping loading lever felt solid under the thumb, no fragility there. It did drop loose once during the session. On closer inspection the latch notch appears to be cut just shallow enough that the lever is barely kissing the edge rather than snapping in. There’s a little side-to-side play in the lever and if it biases the right way it pops free. It only happened once, so the spring tension is carrying the weight the notch isn’t fully pulling. If this were mine to keep, ten minutes with a file would solve it. Whether that’s a manufacturing variation or something inherited from the original Uberti worked from, hard to say with certainty.
Trigger pull came in right around 2 lbs 14 oz. No take-up, no creep, just a stiff wall and an abrupt drop. Reasonable for what this gun is. It shoots high, as expected for guns of this era. At 15 yards standing unsupported, groups ran about 3 inches and landed 2 to 3 inches above point of aim. The sights are a brass cone at the muzzle and a notch in the hammer face. Shooters coming from modern handguns will need a minute to adjust. Yours truly is at home with it.
Fouling started affecting function around the 20 to 25 round mark. Jams became more frequent and the action started getting sticky. A wet patch between cylinder loads would extend that number considerably.
Final Thoughts: Uberti 1862 Police Revolver
The 1862 Police was designed to give the civilian market .36 caliber performance in a package small enough to disappear into a coat pocket. The Uberti does the concept justice. Finish quality is genuinely impressive for the price. The loading lever latch is a minor fix. The cap jamming is a platform issue and manageable once you build a rhythm with it.
This is not a gun for everyone. It’s for the collector, the history enthusiast, the person who wants to fill out the Colt percussion timeline or understand what pocket carry actually looked like 160 years ago. For that buyer, $529 gets you a gun that looks like it should cost considerably more, and that’s a solid outcome.
In closing, I want to say thank you to Uberti for allowing AllOutdoor and myself the opportunity to try out their 1862 Police Revolver. That is greatly appreciated. Do any of you guys and gals have experience with the Uberti 1862 Police or an original Colt? What loads have you found work best in small-frame .36 revolvers? And do you think a gun like this earns a place in an active shooter’s rotation or does it belong strictly on the shelf?
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