i ended up doing some traveling about SE wisconsin to see some of the different new offerings out there and found one rossi a couple of winchesters some marlins of course and stumbled over an uberti 1873 in 45colt with 24inch octagon barrel. it was nib on the shelf but had a pretty bad ding on the forestock. after a little back and forth got some knocked off the price enough to bring it in line with the marlin cowboy 1894 octagon barrel model.
still learning to use the camera on my cell phone but i dont think i like it very much. i miss my old cheap canon.
you can see the dent in the stock here. it doesnt matter toooo much to me since its likely going to get more dents as i use it.
couldnt resist this gun. while im not a huge fan of the top eject stuff this one isnt pelting me right in the face its kinda flopping empties to the right and straight down. i think i can live with that.