Wheelgun Wednesday: A Remington 1858 For Any Purpose
It’s a bit weird when you think about it, but percussion revolvers are still fairly popular in the U.S. Considering they’ve been obsolete since the 1870s and were manufactured for only about 40 years, give or take a few years, there are an awful lot of these old thumb-busters still available. There’s a wide variety of models to choose from, but the Remington 1858 remains one of the most popular. Here are a few reasons why.
Percussion revolvers @ TFB:
For the wannabe Wild Westerner
“Shoulda been a cowboy,” Toby Keith sang, but he probably wasn’t taking into account the long hours of chasing smelly cows a soggy oilskin, or eating nothing but beans and bacon for days on end. But even if the real work of a cowboy is less appealing than the western movies portrayed, there is still lots of fun in riding the range in the modern era… and in shooting old-fashioned firearms that the cowboys—and other good guys and bad guys of the Wild West—used.
The Remington 1858 has long reigned as one of the most popular because it looks like it should last you for the long haul. The Remington revolver has a frame with a topstrap and looks a lot more beefy than the Colt competitors, which have no topstrap over the cylinder.
I suppose if you were a cowtown marshal looking to pistol-whip a rowdy rustler, this might actually be useful, but if your revolver is a 20th-century playtoy, and only shot occasionally, this is probably less of an issue. Still, that top strap does have one other benefit. Supposedly, the added stiffness means the Remington repros won’t “shoot themselves loose” like other replica revolvers.
There could be another reason for this, and it’s simple. Most—not all—reproductions of the 1858 revolver have a steel frame, not brass. Depending on who you believe, the brass-framed reproductions of open-topped Colt-pattern revolvers will have their action loosen up over time if you’re shooting heavy loads, with steel Colt repros lasting longer. Whatever the reason, and whether or not it’s fair, the 1858 Remington copycats certainly have a much better reputation for toughness with anyone but the hard-core Colt fanboys.
The Remington has another feature that’s quite desirable for some shooters; the cylinders are relatively easy to swap out, which means you can reload quickly if you have a spare cylinder.
See Clint Eastwood demonstrating this technique below, in a famous scene from the movie Pale Rider:
And a less dramatic version of that same move below:
It’s not as quick as a magazine in a semi-auto pistol, but it’s much quicker than loading each chamber of the cylinder manually.
Because the cylinders are quickly and easily replaced, cartridge conversion cylinders—which change the revolver into a clunky centerfire—are also readily available. Kirst Konverter still sells them; others have been available, and are still available, from other manufacturers.
In any flavor you want
The other great thing about the Remington 1858 is that you can buy a copy of this revolver in just about any configuration you can practically imagine.
The most common and the most popular are reproductions of the original military configurations. Under its initial production run, the 1858 came chambered in .44 caliber with an 8-inch barrel as the Army model, or chambered in .36 caliber with a 7.4-inch barrel as the Navy model. These days, the .44-caliber repros with 8-inch barrels are available from retailers everywhere, although smaller .36-caliber versions are also easy to find—just not in as many configurations.
Want something with a slightly shorter barrel, maybe for quickdraw competitions? A Uberti-made 5.5-inch-barreled version will fill that need. Or if you want to go in the other direction, with a longer barrel for accuracy or maybe more hitting power, Pietta makes a version with a 12-inch barrel and target sights.
Want a snubnose version of this blackpowder revolver? You can get that too, with the Pietta Ace available with a 3-inch barrel. It might sound crazy, but there’s actually a surprisingly strong market for these handguns, with people who can’t otherwise qualify for a modern pistol or revolver purchasing the blackpowder guns as they’re much easier to buy. In states that restrict modern handgun purchases to those aged 21 or older, or for people with … other complications … that stop them from buying cartridge-firing guns, the old not-legally-a-firearm-in-some-jurisdictions designs are actually desirable. Paul Harrell explains some of the thinking in his video below (note that one of the revolvers he uses is a Remington 1858 copy).
Expect to pay anywhere from $300ish for a brass-framed .36-caliber 1858 clone to close to $800 for the 12-inch stainless steel version of the 1858. Taylor’s & Co. has a pretty wide selection of these revolvers, but if they don’t have the configuration you want, Google is your friend—these are very easy to ship by mail, if you can’t find what you want at a local dealer.
Professional hoser with fudd-ish leanings.
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I have a navy and love it. More accurate than some ove my plastic fantastics
Finally, an article that was not about 1911's or silencers. Not boring like a zillion ar15 articles.