The lead balls are a piece of cake to seat and leave a nice ring of lead upon seating, assuring a tight and safe fit. This load is not the hottest you can work up–and it isn’t Civil War authentic– but it was easy to work up right from my powder flask. The load used in my standard testing is a 30 grain charge of Graf’s FFFg black powder and a. They are low profile, but still easy enough to pick up and they do shoot to the point of aim. Those sights, by the way, are a groove in the top-strap and a front post, like a modern revolver. Where the Remington might miss the mark is natural point-ability as the gun feels somewhat rear-heavy, but it is not a challenge to line your sights on target quickly. The grips on this Pietta are somewhat larger than the original and they fit my meaty hands with room to spare. This is not so much of a culture shock for today’s shooter. When you first pick up the Remington Army, the first thing you will notice is how modern of a pistol it is. You will not get the elegant lines and engraving of a Colt, but a modern solid frame with fixed iron sights. A bit of grease over the chamber mouth or a lubricated wad will go a long way to keeping black powder fouling at bay. Then put a percussion cap onto each nipple. Like all percussion revolvers, you can tailor loads for a variety of shooters or purposes from plinking to handgun hunting.Īfter firing percussion caps on each of the nipples to rid the cylinder of oil, half-cock the hammer so the cylinder will spin freely.ĭrop a charge of powder into each cylinder and top it with a ball or conical bullet. Like all percussion revolvers, loading is somewhat laborious–but fun. The Remington features milled slots in between the chambers so the gun may be carried fully loaded and the cylinder can be quickly taken out for cleaning by simply dropping the loading lever, half-cocking the hammer, and retracting the cylinder pin. I have carried around spare cylinders in the past for quick reloads, but the practice wasn’t documented at the time. Like most Civil War handguns, the New Model Army uses a six-shot cylinder and is single action, requiring the hammer to be cocked for each shot. This dual purpose loading lever had an 1858 patent date, hence the modern designation of this pistol. The barrel is eight inches long and octagonal and the loading lever doubles as a retainer for the cylinder axis pin. The gun is blued steel with the only embellishment being a brass trigger guard. Pietta’s Army pistol is quite close to the original except the wooden grips are a bit large and the necessary branding and proof marks are in plain view on the barrel. But overall the gun still has the futuristic aesthetics and handling that drew me to the Remington design in the first place when I first started shooting percussion revolvers. The “1858 Remington” is a modern collector’s term for the Remington New Model Army. The Old Model started production in 1861 with the slightly improved New Model Army coming out in 1863. Uberti and Pietta are producing fine Remington style handguns, both authentic and unauthentic. It was a revolver so good that it nearly bankrupted the company. That lead to a number of revolvers being sent to the front lines– the most popular of which was the Remington New Model Army. The loss of arms meant that the US Army needed more handguns than what Colt could produce. Whoever had the most men and the most arms was going to win. The 1860 is half the weight of the previous Walker and Dragoon pistols with the same 44 caliber killing power.īut the Civil War was unlike other previous conflicts. By the time of the American Civil War (1861-65), the US military’s standard issue pistol was the Colt 1860 Army revolver. With an open mechanism that was both elegant and very resistant to black powder fouling–not to mention Samuel Colt’s brilliant marketing– Colt handguns were legitimate fighting handguns. Colt handguns ruled the pistol market in the 1800s, especially their percussion revolvers.