I think I have made up my mine , Winchester carbine 44/40 , now to find one .
If you are willing to wait until they hit the market place, Browning/Winchester will be offering the 1873 in a standard saddle ring carbine style for 2018 in 38/357 mag, 45 Colt, and 44-40. It will have a saddle ring and a ladder rear sight just like the originals.
http://www.winchesterguns.com/produ...1873-current-products/model-1873-carbine.html
If you click on black bar of the item selector, you will see the calibers offered.
Previously they only offered short rifles and sporting rifles with the crescent butt plate although they did a small special run of carbines in trapper barrel length last year. Those are hard to find and pricey.
The MSRP will be $1300, but usually after they hit the market, the street prices will be lower through places like Bud's, Grab a gun, Gunbroker.com,etc. Still, that's not much more than you will pay for a Uberti and in some cases about the same. Uberti MSRP is $1170. However, if you have to buy through Cimarron you are back to $1300 MSRP unless you find a better street price.
The advantage to the Miroku produced Winnie is that it will have real American black walnut wood instead of European Walnut, and it will bear the Winchester name. It will come slightly short stroked, which is mostly aimed at the CAS crowd, but that just means it will be a bit slicker than the non modified Uberti.
Miroku is only offering it with a blued receiver, but in looking at the Uberti site, theirs seem to only come with blued receivers also
In addition, notice that the front sight on the Miroku reproduction is mounted on the barrel just behind the front barrel band. This band is called the type II. This is the way the majority of original Winchester 73 carbines were made.
Uberti on the other hand uses a front barrel band with an integral sight machined into it--called the type I, which was a hold over from the model 66. Less than 10% of the original model 73 carbines would have used this sight before it was permanently eliminated on both models in favor of the type II band and separate sight. I'm sure the type I setup reduces the overall production costs for Uberti, so that's why they use it exclusively, but it's less historically correct--that is--if one cares about such trivia.
Also, the tang of the Miroku made model will be pre-drilled and tapped to mount a tang sight if one wants. With a Uberti, you will either have to pay to have this done or do it yourself if you have the drills, taps, and know how.
Miroku runs their lever gun models in sequential runs all through the year, so there no way to tell just when anything will hit the market place. Consequently it's always feast or famine for any particular make or model. You just have to check all the sources and stay on top of the stock.
The bottom line if you want it now, you will have better luck finding a Uberti, However, if you are willing to wait, IMHO--the Miroku made model will be an over all better choice for about the same cost.
Cheers