Review of the Chiappa Rhino 50DS - SE Charging Rhino version

I am hoping that this will be of some interest to members, just a first look and thoughts type of review.


Chiappa Rhino - the ‘Charging Rhino’ version.


Basically this is a Chiappa Rhino 50DS in a fancy finish with upgraded fibre optic front and rear sights, so most of what I say should relate to any and all of the Chiappa Rhino CO2 revolver range.

The complete list of contents that I received along with the gun ;

branded case,
manual,
thin metal speedloader ring,
red plastic cylinder protection disk,
metal tool for adjusting the sights,
red plastic tool for loading the shells in and out of the speedloader,
a CF (Chiappa Firearms) vinyl sticker,
six cartridge shells.



When I first opened the package I was happy to see the nice black case with the Chiappa Firearms logo emblazoned on it, this happiness was very quickly replaced by the feeling of cheap tacky goods once I actually laid my hands on it. The quality of the case is pretty poor, I wouldn’t have bought a case of that quality to securely keep any of my handguns in and if that’s what the real steel versions come in then I’m truly shocked ! It’s flimsy and the locking point is truly pathetic, if you wanted to use a lock with it then don’t ever worry about losing the key as I’m sure that a simple twist of the lock will break the retaining lug straight away. Not a great start, I was expecting more, but I think that this was setting the tone for the rest of the first day.



Once I had opened the case all that came before was forgiven, I grinned from ‘ear to ear’ when I saw her lying there, to me it’s an attractive gun, not classically attractive in the same way as say a Colt SAA or a Webley mkVI but quirky attractive, in the way that you know you shouldn’t like it but you just can’t help being attracted to it, it’s a modern revolver with 21st Century looks, it certainly has that futuristic Sci-Fi edge to it in spades.

In the hand she has got good weight, the balance is slightly barrel heavy as you would expect but not too much so, the overall feel is a very comfortable fit in the hand. The unusual grip shape and angle feels surprisingly ‘right’ in the hand too.

On inspecting the finish, no bad marks, all reasonably good, the white lettering could of been better on the Chiappa logo and they’ve changed the ‘Charging Rhino’ from the standard white paint (which was on the pre-production models) to an unusual layered engraving type of etching, I’m guessing probably laser engraved as it has very, very fine details. I did notice a lack of proper finish in a couple of places; the edges of loading face of the cylinder were not properly finished (some edges were rough, some were smooth) and the recess for the ejector rod had not been fully sprayed black which allowed the bare metal to be seen (but once the cylinder is closed it’s barely noticeable), might be me being too picky but I expected a better finish for the money I paid.

The fibre optic sights are astoundingly good, apparently they are straight off the real steel version, well made and very functional. You have two green dots for the rear sight and one red dot for the foresight. The rear sight is adjustable for both windage and elevation, which can be done very easily using the supplied tool.

There is an adjustable spring loaded screw situated at the top of the frame for increasing or decreasing the tension in the ball detente for the cylinder lock up, a very handy feature and good to see it included with the replica. The cylinder lock up is accomplished by the ball detente on the crane and also by a centre pin inside the extractor rod, this system locks the cylinder up both front and back, giving it a good solid feel, especially when the cylinder stop is also engaged.

Arrow showing position of cylinder ball detente screw

The crane hinge locking screw, once removed from the frame can be screwed into the crane hinge pin and used to remove the pin from the frame allowing the crane to be removed from the frame. This is an ingenious idea utilising the actual locking screw as the extractor for the crane’s hinge pin, very modern thinking again.

Arrow showing position of the crane hinge locking screw

The shells have the exact same form factor as the Dan Wesson 715 shells apart from a small indented ring that sits above the cartridge rim to allow you to use their proprietary speedloader ring, this is not surprising as the gun is actually made by the same company that make the Dan Wesson 715 for ASG ; The Taiwanese company Wingun. I used my HKS S&W 586 .357 speedloaders with the shells and they fitted perfectly into the cylinder, all the time, every time.


Using the Rhino with the HKS 586 speedloaders

Trigger time

I had read reports that the action was unusually stiff in single action but a lot better in double action, this is not the norm for a revolver (or any handgun for that matter), so with dubious caution I tried it in double action first; Slightly heavy but once you get over the hump of the cylinder rotation it pulls through quite well, it feels that it could easily be staged as you pulled through the action to give steady and accurate shooting results. Next, the single action; The hammer cocks very easily, the red cocking indicator pops up just under the rear sight, slightly to the left of centre, but the trigger pull is terrifyingly hard ! Just when you think that the action has completely locked up and something must be wrong, it snaps ! And honestly, that’s the best way to describe it, it just SNAPS !!!

So that was a problem, after realising it I took the gun for a trip to the workshop for a complete strip down. So in just ten minutes of ownership I had reverted to stripping a brand new gun down to see what could be done to lighten the action, this is something nobody should EVER have to do to a new gun, imagine if that was your new car or a washing machine, you would return it as faulty and quite rightly ask for your money back…..well that’s not me, especially when it comes to a gun that I’ve waited so long to own, the good Lord gave me hands and man invented screwdrivers, so damn it ! It was coming apart…..


The ‘inside’ story

To get the side plate off you need to remove the left grip that covers where the CO2 bulb sits, then unscrew four small Philips headed screws to remove the right grip, then lastly there’s four star drive socket screws that need to be removed to get the side plate to ‘pop’ off.

Nothing flies out when the cover comes off but you’re greeted by one of the most complicated internal workings that I have ever seen inside a CO2 pistol. The trigger has one sear built into it for the cylinder lockup bolt, another sear for the return trigger spring, a two point parallel arm for the hammer sear which separates into the cylinder hand bar and hammer sear, and all that has to go round the CO2 valve which sits above and slightly back from the trigger.

To get the hammer sear to operate the movement has to go from the trigger to the trigger bar, from the trigger bar to cylinder hand bar, off the cylinder hand bar to the first lever, from the first lever to the second lever and finally from the second lever to the actual sear bar ! That's six moving parts, that all have to move to enable the hammer sear to disengage from the hammer, in comparison a standard single action revolver has just two, the trigger to the hammer via the sears on each of them. No wonder the action is so damned heavy ! In truth the mechanics of it are actually quite sound, the trigger has the largest degree of movement and every succeeding part has less and less movement until the final sear which has the smallest amount of movement of any of them, so gearing and leverage wise it does make some sense although not ‘perfect’ sense, if I’m being totally honest.

I made a couple of small alterations to a couple of the parts (the guide pin channel of the cylinder hand bar and to the cylinder latch, as it was ‘sticking’), I lathered everything I could in grease and put it all back together.

(please note : There was a lot more to this procedure than I have mentioned, the hammer, the hammer cover, the hammer spring, the hammer cover return spring, the cocking indicator, the cylinder latch, the gas valve, trigger return spring, recoil shield - most of these had to be removed to complete the aforementioned task)

Once back together the action was slightly better than before BUT nowhere near perfect by any stretch of the imagination.


Shooting test

So with the gun loaded, in single action she shot very well for a smoothbore, at 5m she was giving reasonable groupings with either RWS MK 4.49mm 7grn pellets or H&N Excite 4.52mm 7.25grn pellets. I needed to lift the elevation to compensate for a slightly low POI but once done she was spot on. I noticed that I kept pulling my shots to the right which was definitely down to the ‘snap’ of the single action trigger pull. The trigger pull in SA never got any better, it never ‘broke in’ and was very tiring on my whole hand. So I decided on a change of tact, rather than forcing the gun to try to work flawlessly in single action I decided to embrace it’s better double action nature. That turned out to be a true ‘eye opener’ and I soon realised where the Rhino’s true strength really lies.


Double action happiness

Switching to double action shooting with the Rhino proved to be a giant leap in the right direction, once I had adjusted the sights again, she proved herself to be phenomenally accurate and very quick to target. She gave me the smallest groups that I have ever shot in double action with any gun and on top of that, they were also the quickest too. She finds her target quickly with the fibre optic sites, stays on target after the shot, rather than wandering like a lot of other revolvers do, the action is solid, stable and slick. A very rewarding shooting experience ! I tried it with both paper targets and moving metal plates, she was hitting the plates almost continuously, solidly knocking them down, follow up shots on misses was lightning fast and very accurate with well over 90% of follow up shots finding the target.

The Americans have a term for certain CO2 handguns, some of them are referred to as “Action Pistols”, well in this case the Chiappa Rhino certainly puts the word ‘action’ in ‘double action’. This definitely is an action handgun, if you are looking at shooting steel plates against the clock for IPSC then this would definitely be a great choice. Combined with the use of speedloaders, this gun would make for some thrilling and diverse shooting games, using multiple moving targets, reloads and with the clever use of stationary targets in different positions, I can see it being a lot of fun as well as very rewarding.

I cannot stress enough about it’s accuracy in double action, it goes well above what we have come to expect from double action shooting. In my own collection of revolvers there are only a couple that are suitable for DA shooting and even they don’t come anywhere close to the accuracy and speed of the Chiappa Rhino !


Chronograph test

RWS meisterkugeln 4.49mm 7 grain wadcutters
Average fps of 321.5 over a 84 shot string

H&N Excite plinking 4.52mm 7.25 grain wadcutters
Average fps of 329.3 over a 84 shot string

For 5” barrelled smoothbore that’s not too bad, especially considering that it was a decent 84 shot string, most (if not all) of my other revolvers only manage a 72 shot string before the fps drops too far.





Conclusion

Overall the gun doesn’t justify the extremely high price tag (£230 in the UK), the workmanship of the gun is good but not great like the price tag would lead you to believe, the case is cheap & nasty plus the heavy single action trigger pull gives the gun very limited capabilities.

On a more positive note, it’s got a great feel to it, very point-able in a very natural way and when used in double action it does shine ! This is not a target gun, by that I mean it’s not a single action, take your time with the shot sort of revolver, it’s a true ‘action’ handgun. In double action it stands head and shoulders above a lot of other guns both in terms of quickness of target acquisition and sureness of the shot placement. If you’re after an action pistol, then look no further but if you’re after a classic feeling revolver then forget it, this gun is all about quick pointing, reaction shooting rather than rested, single action paper target work.

The gun’s double action strength however cannot and should not be ignored, it will out shoot other revolvers in single action with it’s double action accuracy and speed. I’m not exaggerating this at all, it was quite a shock when I gave up the ghost with the single action and concentrated on DA shooting with it. There’s always been revolvers that are DA only and this is the first replica revolver (to my knowledge) that is in the same vein, although it does come with SA, it’s unworkable and should be forgotten about the instant you put one in your hand. But then maybe I’m trying to put a positive spin on a substandard gun, that would be true if it wasn’t for the fact that it doesn’t just work in double action but it actually excels in it.

I found that it favoured the 4.52mm sized pellets for double action shooting, good accuracy and very small groups. The groups would completely remove the bullseye from a paper target at 5m in six shots !

I’ve had to do a lot of routine maintenance with the gun straight out of the box, the ball detente needed adjusting to get it to lock just right and allow easier opening, the ejector rod was bone dry and needed greasing, the cylinder lock up in the recoil shield needed greasing to ease the opening and closing of the cylinder and that’s without all of the grease I ‘lathered’ it in when I had the side plate off but in truth it’s not the first brand new CO2 gun that’s been purchased that needed greasing straight off the bat.

If you’ve always liked the look of the gun, you’re going to love it, if you like the idea of ‘Action’ shooting then you’ll love it even more but if you’re looking for a single action paper target puncher, don’t bother…...it’s awful !!! And yes, I really do mean that.


Finally…..

Would I recommend it to fellow members ? Only if they got the cheaper standard version or a cheap secondhand one and they also wanted to do some double action target slaying.

Amendment (17/6/22)
Since writing this 'quick' review I've come across an interesting video on a simple modification to the SA trigger sear and trigger return spring that have successfully reduced the stacking weight of the single action trigger on this gun. There's a forum thread on this subject....

co2-handguns.freeforums.net/thread/2646/chiappa-rhino-tune

I highly recommend any owners of the Rhino to do it as it has made the gun so much easier to shoot in SA, I would now rate this gun even higher than previously thought now that the SA modification has been done to it.