When the Taurus Model 85 became the inexpensive snubnose "du jour", it largely replaced the UC as the new cop's back-up gun. I've seen several UC's that had hard lives in ankle holsters and jacket pockets that were still functional and beloved by their owners. The UC was particularly popular in the northeast U.S. * A lot of young (low paid) police officers and sheriff's deputies purchased the Charter Arms UC as a back-up / off-duty gun. Most of the early ones were solid guns but I would be very reluctant to purchase one that I couldn't shoot before buying. This tended to taint the reputation of the Charter Arms UC on the used market. It has been my experience that people that had good ones held onto them and people that had less than good ones sold them off. The Undercover was a very popular snubnose 38 due to its lower cost *. Most, but not all, of the early model Undercover's were good guns. Even under their original ownership, which lasted the longest time span, they didn't always turn out the same quality. The recoil from this caliber was more manageable (with routine factory RN loads) and the rest is history.Ī lot of people put them down, I've had four of the older ones with nothing but good service.Ĭharter Arms has been through several iterations, not always moving in the right direction. Then the engineers came forward with the 44 Special chambering. He withdrew the revolver and flatly refused to fire any more rounds through it in the box. The recoil was so pronounced it struck his forearm sharply on the top of the box's window opening where he inserted the firearm. Their shooter shoved his hand with the loaded revolver in the box and fired one shot. This box is reinforced so if the product detonates it will generate injuries only to the shooter's hand. Before they will consider mass production of any firearm they test fire their prototype in a strong "safety" box. Their original test model was chambered in 357 Magnum. While at the CA factory they told us about their development of this firearm. That happened almost 44 years ago and both she and the Charter are still with me! About 3 months passed before Christmas when I found one of these under the tree from SWMBO. I fell in love with the size and caliber and talked about it for the rest of the trip. The staff welcomed us in for a visit and introduced us to their new product chambered in 44 Special, 3 inch barrel and oversize wooden grips. In the early Fall of 1973 SWMBO and I were on an extended vacation through the New England area and found ourselves at the Charter Arms factory.
I have enjoyed owning and shooting the Charter Arms revolvers for quite a few years. The T-grips are still in production my the inventor's (Melvin Tyler) son, can be found on the net.
I have fired several of the Undercover revolvers with standard grips and have found the Tyler T-grip inserts to be the most satisfactory solution to making the grip easier to hold and manage without increasing their bulk. He laughed and said that's what it did to him, too. Five shots from that and I dropped the magazine, emptied the chamber and gave it back to the man that owned it. That happened to be the first Glock I ever fired. Another with a low price would put one in my glovebox. A boy offered me a very decent price for it and even knowing about reason I wasn't happy with it he bought it. I sent it back to Charter but something still felt amiss. When we finally got it back there was something wrong with it. They kept the revolver for a long time after the trial. The police caught him that night about two miles from the house. The car wasn't working, so he rooted around and found the revolver.
One night she left it in her car and someone tried to steal the car. I bought an UC way back in the '70's for my first wife. 44 and wouldn't part with it for any reason.