[Alex Johnson]

Sounds like the 1858 is getting kind of a bad rap in some of the posts. First off, I own three of them so I've had a fair ammount of experience with both the Remington and Colt pistols, in fact my first cap and ball revolver was a 58 Remington which I shot endlesselly. As far as the situation with cap jams I have to say I've never experienced this with a Remington style pistol, Colts have given me endless problems when the cap falls back into the frame and jams up the mechanisim (seems to happen quite frequently actually). I've heard that this was one of the real dangers with the Colts in combat and probably contributed to more than one poor soldiers demise in the civil war. The Remingtons seem to be able to bypass this problem since the hammer sticks through the frame enough where broken caps are more likely to fall out before they can be dragged back into the hammer channel where they could jam up the internals.

The second advantage over the Colts is that the Remington is a stronger pistol, the added top strap (thought to be a disadvantage by some) actually adds considerable strength to the overall design, you encounter loose Colts quite frequently, but never encounter this with the solid frame Remingtons. This was a nice plus in the days when steel was not quite what it is today and people still needed to be able to wring the most power possible out of pistols on occasion.

Lastly the Remington revolver actually shot close to point of aim rather than 6-8" high as in the case of the majority of Colt revolvers. One can argue that this was done on purpose by Sam Colt who felt that in distress an aim at a mans torsoe was most likely, he might have reasoned that in such a scenario the shot would still land in the chest. Still, plenty of old west gunfighters requested higher front sights, I've seen one of Hickocks 51 Navies in Cody Wyoming that had the sight changed from a pin to a higher dovetailed sight, so this must have bothered some of the men that actually used these guns in combat. I would imagine hitting one's mark was just as important to these people as it is to some of our modern day shooters. In any event the higher post front sight on the Remington was a standard factory item.

Lastily as to the fowling issue, I've never fired an original Remington, but I've had plenty of practice with the reproductions, when I was actually using real black powder I would generally end up cleaning up the cylinder pin and cylinder hole every 5 or six loadings. However, bear in mind this was when I was loading from the flask and not removing the cylinder. If I was actually removing the cylinder each time and replacing it with a fresh cylinder I don't think the problem would have been anywhere near as pronounced. Honestly, you can't really believe that being able to reload a gun more than five or six times without cleaning would have been all that important to most of these people. Battles would have seldom been encounterd that required this much firepower at one time and spending any ammount of time reloading a revolver during the heat of battle would probably have got you killed in relatively short order, this is reason for the popularity of multiple pistols and the original intent of this post. In defense of the Remington the Colts also are prone to cylinders locking up due to powder fowling, I've had experience with this situation on numerous occasions so I don't think the comparison is all that valid in proving one's superiority over the other.

The Remington had quite a following, largely because of the fire that destroyed the Colt factory in the later years of the war allowing Remington to supply large numbers of pistols to the Union army. Still, the Remingtons proved to be a worthy pistol in combat and it was said that at some points in the conflict a Remington was worth the same price as 2-3 colts in the minds of the soldiers and officers who used them on both sides of the line. I still love the Colts and have several of them, but let's not forget the significant role the Remingtons played in history and the numerous advantages they had over many of their competitors.

Darth, in answer to your question the screw the Remingtons loading lever pivots on is in the frame, it does on occasion work it's way loose if it is well worn. The Colt's rammer also has a screw right on the rammer assembly itself. I've found this screw is also prone to working itself loose. If someone was going to swap cylinders in combat the logical move would have been to completely remove the rammer assembly from the 1858 as it would be a hindrence in quick changes of the cylinders and of no use if this was what you intended to do. The only problem would have been if the cylinder pin (which is retained by the closed loading lever) was to work itself out during use, this wouldn't likely have been much of a problem however as long as the pin was a tight fit as it should be.