OLD/Original Charter Arms Target Bulldog in .44 Special, safe to shoot?...

My wife's dad has one. During a recent visit he had me look it over. It looked totally fine and checked out fine. Thing is like mint new probably only ever been fired a very few times. It was very light with an alloy frame. He said it kicked like a mule.

He had 246gr LRN in it and no other ammo. I gave him some Silvertips.

My question is, is this gun known to have nay factory defects or recalls or something that would make it unsafe? It certainly seemed fine when I checked it out, but I am not so knowledgeable about older out of production guns.

TED

Charter has varied over the years through several owners from good guns to pretty junky. The junky ones would typically shoot out of time in a few boxes, but they were never "blow up in your hand" junky to my knowledge. Worst case you find out the cylinder develops some excessive play after a few boxes. Best case you'll probably wear out your hand and bank account buying enough 44 Special to break it.

Seeing as they were mainly intended as "sock drawer" or glovebox guns that might shoot one or two boxes in their lifetime, they served in that capacity well. I've heard pretty good things about the new ones, they are no S&W but there are people out there with several thousand rounds through them with zero issues and good accuracy.

If it passes inspection it should be fine. Don't shoot anything advertised as really hot or "+p" though and it will last longer.

buddy of mine has one that looks like it should never be shot, but its a fine shooter. finish is bad, cylinder is loose, but still puts rounds in a 3" circle at 25 feet. as said above, some of 'em were junk, saturday nite special would be a comment guns, but like everything else theres a jem or 2 in the mix. never heard of major failures like blowin' up from these.