Justin
Moderator Emeritus
Ok, so after snagging a bunch of .38 Spl. on sale at Wally World, I decided it was time to take the Mateba out for a spin. After field stripping the beast, changing out the heavy .357 mag recoil spring for the lighter .38 Spl one, I packed it up, grabbed a friend, and headed out to the range for some shootin'.
This is really only the third time I've taken the Mateba out for a spin, and this time I was much happier with the accuracy of the firearm. I had almost no trouble keeping all of my shots within the black at 10 yards on an international style air pistol target. Here is a typical example:
According to the ruler marks on my leatherman, the black area measures just slightly over 2.5 inches in diameter. That should give some idea of general accuracy. This was a fairly warm day, and more or less an informal plinking session, nothing too hardcore.
The Mateba is touted as the world's only currently produced semi-auto revolver. Basically this means that the gun is designed so that after each shot the weapon will cycle, rotating the cylinder and cocking the hammer. In this way, it's much more like a DA/SA semi auto than a traditional revolver. In this pic, my friend Scott is holding the, for lack of a better term, slide back and you can see the recoil guide rod protruding from the front of the frame, where the arrow is pointing to. If you look closely, you can see the grooves for the slide as well.
Unlike traditional revolver designs, the Mateba fires from the 6 o'clock cylinder, which gives it a lower bore axis and reducing felt recoil. The cylinder also rotates clockwise which, iirc, is the opposite of the traditional designs. However, the Mateba doesn't have as low of a bore axis as you would think. Remember, there's got to be room for the recoil spring, guide rod, and slide grooves. This raises the bore axis somewhat, though not a tremendous amount.
Recoil with the .38 Spl was quite pleasant, with the nearly 3 lbs. of Italian steel soaking it up quite nicely. It didn't feel as snappy as my P7 9mm. I found it very easy to shoot accurately as well as quickly. Double taps with the Mateba are quite easy to do.
There has been quite a bit of interest in this design, but not a whole lot of info is available. Hopefully I've been able to shine some light on the subject of just how this Italian contraption works.
This is really only the third time I've taken the Mateba out for a spin, and this time I was much happier with the accuracy of the firearm. I had almost no trouble keeping all of my shots within the black at 10 yards on an international style air pistol target. Here is a typical example:
According to the ruler marks on my leatherman, the black area measures just slightly over 2.5 inches in diameter. That should give some idea of general accuracy. This was a fairly warm day, and more or less an informal plinking session, nothing too hardcore.
The Mateba is touted as the world's only currently produced semi-auto revolver. Basically this means that the gun is designed so that after each shot the weapon will cycle, rotating the cylinder and cocking the hammer. In this way, it's much more like a DA/SA semi auto than a traditional revolver. In this pic, my friend Scott is holding the, for lack of a better term, slide back and you can see the recoil guide rod protruding from the front of the frame, where the arrow is pointing to. If you look closely, you can see the grooves for the slide as well.
Unlike traditional revolver designs, the Mateba fires from the 6 o'clock cylinder, which gives it a lower bore axis and reducing felt recoil. The cylinder also rotates clockwise which, iirc, is the opposite of the traditional designs. However, the Mateba doesn't have as low of a bore axis as you would think. Remember, there's got to be room for the recoil spring, guide rod, and slide grooves. This raises the bore axis somewhat, though not a tremendous amount.
Recoil with the .38 Spl was quite pleasant, with the nearly 3 lbs. of Italian steel soaking it up quite nicely. It didn't feel as snappy as my P7 9mm. I found it very easy to shoot accurately as well as quickly. Double taps with the Mateba are quite easy to do.
There has been quite a bit of interest in this design, but not a whole lot of info is available. Hopefully I've been able to shine some light on the subject of just how this Italian contraption works.
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