El Malo

It's been about ten months since I bought a gun.  Those who know me, know that that fact is an aberration, and that may not be particularly true.  I seem to recall buying a gift gun earlier this year.

Regardless, it was August last that I pulled the pin on a gun that will go in my gun bag.  At Oklahoma State in May, I saw a gun that piqued my interest.  I was hand-judging for a fellow and he pulled out a really pretty gun with an octagonal barrel.  I asked what it was, and the told me "Cimarron El Malo."

Cimarron, as we all know is a gun importer from Fredricksburg, Texas.  They import Italian clones and work them, selling them under their banner.  Because I was hand-judging and we were in the middle of a state competition, I didn't get to inspect the revolver, but the name stuck in my head.  El Malo, as my Spanish-speaking friends tell me, translates as "The Bad", and with it's color-case hardened frame and octagonal barrel, looked bad, indeed.

So, over the last month or so, I've done a little homework.  Like many of us in the internet age, I hit YouTube first and found this video, which gives me the good news and the bad news.



The good news is that it has a lot of features I like.  The firing pin is hammer-mounted as opposed to being frame mounted.  It uses the old four-click Colt system, which I like a lot better than Ruger's loading gate system. (** This is not a hit on Ruger.  They make fine firearms, and I own four Vaqueros and a Blackhawk. I love them all.)

According to the video, above, the trigger breaks clean at just over two pounds, and Cimarron has a sterling reputation among cowboy shoters.

The bad news?  It's made by Elli Pietta, a magnificent maker of reproduction firearms. While that is not a problem for 99% of cowboy shooters, my particular concern is that Blue Eyed Belle, my wife, girlfriend, shooting partner and  travel buddy, absolutely LOVES Pietta revolvers.  Both of her competition revolvers are Pietta and she adores them.  When she sees the box, her eyebrows will rise, her nostrils will flare a bit, and she'll ask, "Pietta?"

That's the bad news.  This one might wind up in her gun bag.