I was told by the Chiappa folks, they changed the Armi Sport name to Chiappa because of this confusion. Many folks have made the same mistake, though. They are two different Italian firearms manufacturing companies. But, Armi Sport is still in business (under a new name).

Armi San Marco and Armi Sport now Chiappa are two different companies. Same range as Uberti that all the problems would go away. They thought if they started raising the price on their guns to in the All you have to do is go inside of a gun made by them and you will see how bad it is. When Puma started having the 92's made by them instead of Rossi in Brazil, they increased the prices but not the workmanship. I was told a few years back that the other gun makers in Italy approached them and requested that they work harder on the craftsmanship as they were giving the Italian gun makers a bad name. They make the guns for Chiappa now and the quality is still the worst out of Italy. The firing pin broke on the 3 or 4th shot. A friend of mine purchased a 1874 Sharps repo made by them a few yearsīack for a Christmas gift for his son. They make the guns for different companies and the workmanship is terrible. ASM attempted to revive its percussion revolvers with limited success and finally closed its doors several years back.Īrmi San Marco is still making guns and they are known for making guns with bad workmanship. I remember that ASM was sold to American Western Arms who only produces cartridge revolvers. Allen then started Western Arms which became Allen Arms, and then to Cimarron. This was sold and moved to Marietta, OH., and then, in around 1973, was sold to Navy Arms. Replica Arms of El Paso, TX was started by L.F. Also, ASM use forged frames instead of castings on many of their revolvers. Changes were made in the production guns to make sure they could not be passed off as an original. I do remember an article about this first revolver in that it was so exactly copied from an original that even experienced Colt collectors had difficulty in telling the prototype from an original. Replica Arms was the first importer for ASM revolvers, the first being the 1847 Walker. Contact Fingers McGee or Driftwood Johnson.Ī quick look netted this info from a CAS City post:ĪSM was one of the first Italian manufacturers back in 1960 along with Uberti.

American western arms serial numbers