Most durable lockwork, Remington or Colt?

[pohill]

In a letter written by "C. Downing" in what looks like 1840, he describes the advantages of a Colt's repeating rifle for settlers on the Seminole frontier.
"One cylinder holds ten shots; another is attached to the piece with as many more, which may be shifted in a twinkling, even in the face of death; thus giving to a man beseiged in his house twenty shots..."

[MJN77]

If Gregg was cylinder-swapping in the 1840s, it's not hard to imagine that some soldiers did it during the 1860s..... it might not have been a common practice, but I wouldn't want to claim that it never happened

I posted earlier that most of the original spare cylinders I have seen were in sets with the 1836 Colt Paterson revolvers. Texas Rangers of the 1840s carried "spares" with their Patersons. This was also before combustable cartridges were commonly available. I have seen very few extra cylinders with any of the later models, and when I have they were mostly in presentation (highly engraved, inlaid etc) cased sets. No one ever said it NEVER happened. With the added expense, added weight, extra burden,etc, how many common soldiers do you think would've bothered when combustable cartridges were easily obtained? Like I said before, each cylinder would've been custom ordered from the factory. Would've taken weeks, at best, to be delivered. Would've had to be hand fitted to EACH DIFFERENT REVOLVER. They would not work with other guns. I bet there were a handful of people with extra cylinders during the war. I have still not seen or read evidence of it though. Have you? I would love to see documentation of this, but I'm not ignorant enough to say it was common because "they coulda' done it", or "cause my grandpapy said so". I want facts, not speculation.

[ofitg]

I bet there were a handful of people with extra cylinders during the war. I have still not seen or read evidence of it though. Have you? I would love to see documentation of this, but I'm not ignorant enough to say it was common because "they coulda' done it", or "cause my grandpapy said so". I want facts, not speculation.

I don't think anybody claimed it was common during the war.

Oh well, at least we have documentary evidence of soldiers "squeezing chickens"

[MJN77]

I don't think anybody claimed it was common during the war

Soldiers did carry loaded extra cylinders too. Think about it. Who carried revolvers in battle? People who could afford an extra cylinder. Officers, and cavalrymen who generally came from the "gentry" ,at least they did in the south.

Comes off that way to me. "Officers and cavalrymen" takes in a whole lot of people.

[ofitg]

I guess you could read it that way... I read it a different way - it seemed that the writer was pointing out that the cost was not prohibitive, at least not for everybody, but it doesn't necessarily follow that all those people with the funds would avail themselves of that option.

I read that one of my ancestors got a $400 horse shot out from under him. Whew! If that story is accurate, I know where his money went!

[MJN77]

I guess you could read it that way... I read it a different way - it seemed that the writer was pointing out that the cost was not prohibitive, at least not for everybody, but it doesn't necessarily follow that all those people with the funds would avail themselves of that option.

The average private in the ACW made something like $8-$10 a month.(been a while since I've seen the actual amounts) A Colt revolver at the time was around $12-$17. A Remington was about the same. Now you figure a cylinder was likely a couple of bucks. That would be quite a bit of money to custom order one cylinder, let alone two or three. Then you would have to have the local gunsmith hand fit each of them. More expense. Unless you were an officer, the revolver you carried was not even yours. At war's end, theoretically, you had to turn them back in. That war was called a "rich man's war, fought by the poor man" for a reason. Not a whole lot of mllionaires on the battlefields. How many privates do you think would go through all that, with $8 a month pay? Officers made around $15-$20 bucks a month. How many officers do you think would do it? As I stated before, it's not like you could go to Cabela's and pick up a few extras, to fit all your pistols. They didn't have computer controlled machines, back then. There was a lot of cost involved, for not much gain. To me, it's a matter of practicality. Considering how little revolvers were used in combat, mixed with the cost and general PITA, you do not really gain much at all. Again, I'm sure a few men had them, but I'm also sure it wasn't that many. All this, not to mention that I seriously doubt that the Colt (CT) or Remington (NY) companies would've sold much of anything to the confederate states after 1860. This is my take on it anyway.

I read that one of my ancestors got a $400 horse shot out from under him. Whew! If that story is accurate, I know where his money went!

WOW! That would be a major bummer.

[Hawg]

One of my ancestors raised thoroughbred race horses but he walked three days to join the infantry.

[ofitg]

Yeah, I have my doubts about that "$400 horse" story..... don't want to disparage my forebears, but I wonder if somebody embellished the story by adding an extra "zero" to the number?

[Hawg]

A good thoroughbred might have run that much or more so I guess that's why my ancestor didn't join the cavalry. Confederates had to furnish their own horses.

[ofitg]

That's the real kicker, my ancestor was a Confederate, supposedly served 12 months in the 20th Tennessee Infantry, then joined a cavalry outfit in 1862..... where the heck did he get that kind of money?

[Hawg]

Obviously he was monied. You can contact the Tn state archives and get copies of his muster cards.

[ofitg]

Thanks, I might do that. This thread piqued my interest, and I did a little online research - I found "Carithers, J.D." on the roster for 20th TN Inf, so I'm confident in that part of the story....

http://www.researchonline.net/tncw/index/index60.htm

[DG45]

$400 in Confederate money wasn't worth nearly as much (ie. wouldn't buy nearly as much) as $400 U.S, and this got progressively worse with every month that went by in the war. It could have paid for a thorobred early in the war but probably wouldn't have bought much more than a broken-down nag in the late stages of the war.

It was said earlier in this thread that one of the reasons that cylinders were supposedly "never" swapped, was because each cylinder had to be hand fitted. Did each cylinder have to be hand fitted or is that just more orthodxy?

I have two new Pietta revolvers. One is an 1851 Colt navy near-clone, that cost me $160 and came with two cylinders. I don't think there is enough profit for Pietta in that deal to hand fit a cylinder, but both cylinders fit fine.

Does Pietta use a vastly differing manufacturing proccess today compared to the ones Colt and Remington used back in the Civil War, or not?

[Buzzcook]

http://www.cincinnaticwrt.org/data/c...y_tactics.html

This article by Stephen Z. Starr is a must read for anyone interested in calvary tactics of the Civil War.

When I undertook the task of writing a paper on Cavalry Tactics in the Civil War, I assumed that my function would be to provide a nostalgic interlude in the midst of the professionally more meaningful papers of my colleagues. Although I had a fairly good general knowledge of Civil War Tactics, I thought that a paper on cavalry would deal mainly with moonlight and roses, and that it would fall to Messrs. Miller, Morrison and Reardon to give you the "thunder of the captains and the shouting." Not until I began an intensive course of reading and rereading in preparation for this paper did I come gradually to realize that I had drawn a prize assignment. 1 shall now try to demonstrate to you that of all the tactical and technical innovations in which the Civil War was so prolific, none was so meaningful for the future, and none so clearly foreshadowed a new era of tactics and indeed of strategy, as the tactics of the mounted arm. I am convinced that to whatever degree it may still be worth while to study tactics in terms of armed human beings watched in battle, it is the tactical and strategic employment of cavalry as developed in the Civil War, that is most deserving of your attention. These tactical innovations did not come about by accident. They were devised and put into practice by a small number of gifted soldiers - not one of whom, by the way, was a professional cavalryman - and if a major attribute of military greatness is the ability to think out and use new tactical devices to fit new conditions, then high places must be found in the Civil War Pantheon for such men as Sheridan, Wilson, Buford and Forrest.

Heck read all the articles on the site.

[Hawg]

Does Pietta use a vastly differing manufacturing proccess today compared to the ones Colt and Remington used back in the Civil War, or not?

Yes, vastly different. Pietta uses CNC machinery to make parts. Back in the day it was lathes, milling machines and hand fitting every single part

[DG45]

In this thread above, there are posts that indicate that spare cylinders wouldn't have been useful because they had to be hand -fitted to revolvers, which was probably done at the factory only if the revolver and cylinders were purchased at the same time, in which case both or all the cylinders purchased at that time may have been fitted to the gun, but in no other cases. That seemed to be a sensible argument, worthy of serious consideration, unlike some of the knee jerk stuff that was posted.

I started looking into how weapons were repaired during the Civil War and found some interesting information about ordinance officers. Apparently there were such people, and they were responsible for all sorts of things related to a regiments or battalions (or whatevers) firearms, including taking charge of all that were not in the hands of the troops, and making sure that the weapons that were in the troops hands were in good working order, and stuff like that. Ordinance officers were basically administrators, with command authority but who in most cases possessed no special gunsmithing skills of their own, so were authorized to employ soldiers called "mechanics", to do whatever actual repairs were neccesary.

These "mechanics" would probably be called gunsmiths or armorers today, and they would have been the people who did whatever hand-fitting was neccesary to make a cylinder fit a revolver. So I don't see think that the fact that a cylinder had to be hand-fitted to a gun would have actually been much of a problem during the Civil War.

[MJN77]

So I don't see think that the fact that a cylinder had to be hand-fitted to a gun would have actually been much of a problem during the Civil War.

Except for the fact that these "gunsmiths" would have had far more important things to do. For instance, keeping tens of thousands of infantry rifles and muskets in working order. You, yourself said the cavalry didn't fight much, so why would these "gunsmiths" waste their time on hand fitting unnnecessary accessories to thousands of revolvers (which weren't used as much as you seem to think they were) that were used by a support arm of the army? Fitting extra cylinders would still be a time consuming, custom job, done entirely by hand. The U.S. ordinance department, was not in the business of doing custom gunsmithing work for soldiers. Especially in the midst of a war. Their job was/is to keep what is in the field shooting.

[Hawg]

DG45, I don't think you understand the mechanics of a revolvers mechanism. The revolver has to be timed to the cylinder not the other way around. Nowadays cylinders from one manufacturer will fit like guns from the same manufacturer. Back then it wasn't always so. Just luck of the draw whether it would or wouldn't. If you change the timing for one cylinder the other one wont work. Some people have bought conversion cylinders and their revolvers weren't timed right for them. They have the gun timed for the conversion cylinder and the original cylinder no longer works. There's no written documentation, no pictures, no dug relics to back it up. You take the word of an old man 100 years after the fact as gospel.

[pvt.Long]

I'm going to talk about a few topics so please bare with me on this. Weapons mechanics ( keep in mind these men are living out of a tiny tent just as the soldiers on the line, with a small desk to work on with sun and candle light and a small fire to work with everything they had fit into a case that they could carry around) Tools of the day were hammers a turn screw( screw driver) wrenches and files and a ball puller as well as an amount of spare springs ad other small parts. These men would not waste their time on custom fitting a weapon together. Trust me on this fact that fresh green infantry privates kept the blacksmith and and or weapons mechanic very busy with malfunctioning and normal wear and tear on their rifles. (anyone with military experience will know this is true). They didn't have a mills lath or machines to hand fit something that needs to be so precise as a revolver. Or even a steady supply line to where they can get parts they needed. The armies north and south were more worried about getting more important items on line like shoes, rifles and food.When dealing with CB weapons even just a small amount of filing in the wrong place too deep or too shallow will cause the weapon to fail and possibly kill the soldier holding the weapon. Most companies of cavalry were funded by the governments. If one trooper had it it had to be all across the board. Revolvers of the day were a hot item and cost a pretty penny, most privates were issued 1 side arm 1 long arm carbine or rifle and saber. The hand fitted cylinders and custom fitted revolvers cost money. When it came to money ,the US and CS government had more important areas to spend its money on like shoes, clothing, food, blankets, shelters, canteens, haversacks knap-sacks, cannon, Shot, powder, cartage's, flags etc... now officers were a different story, officers were required to buy their own uniforms,equipment and accoutrements, some of them even financed their own companies, for example Berdens Sharpshooters were a privately mustered and financed company of rifleman.men like JEB Stuart purchased a pair of Le Mats that he carried on to the field.Keep this in mind other then the Le mat revolvers are 6 shot accurate to 25 yards( Wild Bill is an exemption) by they time the enemy got in range of such a limited ranged weapon that means you are getting closer to your enemy. After your 6 shots in that weapon is up. there is no time to change cylinders. there is no chance or place to hide on an open field or forested area where you are directly engaging your enemy. Modern day Civil War reenacting is no good example. you are a small group of men using blanks portraying a much larger force of men that used lead in their charges not grease,cream of wheat or any other filler. the reason reenactor carry spare cylinders is for the show. So a civil war trooper would look at a spare cylinder extra weight and not needed. A man had to weigh 200 lbs max with tack and all I repeat ALL of his equipment on his horse. Modern day CNC machining methods used by modern weapon manufactures are so precise that their tolerances are something around + or - .0001 of an inch or smaller, compared to back then that no one had an exact way of measuring the preciseness of their machines and tools.The main part of the revolver is the cylinder, the timing for the weapon must fit that cylinder or it will not work properly. To get a revolver timed to fit a new cylinder correctly it takes a little bit of measuring and precise craftsmanship with modern tools.Modern day there is no difference on which Colt or Remington is more reliable or accurate but which European company is producing the replica.

[DG45]

MJN77 questions why a military gunsmith would waste his time hand fitting a cylinder to a gun. Having once been in the military, I feel qualified to answer that question: It would be because he was ordered to. You see ,in the military all the underlings together can't outvote their superior in rank. So yes these armorers had a thousand men in a regiment to worry about (not 10,000) but they also had a bunch of Company Sergeants, a couple of Sergeant majors, about 12 lieutenants, 4 Captains, a Colonel, and about 6 to 12 staff officers to deal with too, all of whom probably outranked the gunsmith, and let me tell you, if it was anything like the army I remember, their wants trumped the regiments needs every time.

Hawg Haggen doesn't think I know much about the lockwork on a Revolver. Well, I know a little, about enough to be dangerous, the knee bone's connected to the ankle bone sort of thing, and call me crazy, but I believe a competent gunsmith could have probably fitted a lets say 1851 Colt Navy cylinder to an 1851 Colt Navy revolver. Not neccesarily perfectly, but good enough so that the cylinder would fit on the arbor and the loading lever would fit into the 6 o'clock cylinder, and that would be enough to get the barrel into reasonable enough alignment so that the ball would make it out the end of the barrel - perhaps without a lot of accuracy, but pistols were close range weapons anyway. I may be wrong. I've never tried it, but the cylinder was always a seperately manufactured part of the revolver wasn't it, that had to be hand-fitted to the gun at the factory by somebody who knew how?

My understanding is that Pietta went to CNC machinery in the last 5 years. Before that, wouldn't one of Pietta's spare cylinders fit into another Pietta gun of the same model with a little gunsmithing?

[Hawg]

My understanding is that Pietta went to CNC machinery in the last 5 years. Before that, wouldn't one of Pietta's spare cylinders fit binto another Pietta gun with a little gunsmithing.

Pietta went to CNC in late 99 or early 2000. Yeah, prolly without any work at all but the equipment they made revolvers with was still more accurate than what was available in the mid 1800's.

the cylinder was always a seperately manufactured part of the revolver wasn't it, that had to be hand-fitted to the gun at the factory by somebody who knew how?

Yeah but making things line up isn't exactly what you're after. What you're after is making it line up when you cock the hammer. To do that you file or replace the hand that turns the cylinder. You file the bolt and/or bend the bolt legs to get it to lock in properly. If the next cylinder isn't a perfect match you have to do the same for it. If you time it for the second cylinder the first one no longer works. Ya know, I'm tired of this B.S. go on believing what you want to believe. There is no written evidence, no picture evidence, no museum evidence, no relic evidence, the manufacturing limitations of the time are against it but it must be true cuz you said so.

[MJN77]

Ya know, I'm tired of this B.S. go on believing what you want to believe. There is no written evidence, no picture evidence, no museum evidence, no relic evidence, the manufacturing limitations of the time are against it but it must be true cuz you said so.

I'm with you Hawg. This fool doesn't care about fact. He cares about what he wants to believe. You can lead a horse to water........

[DG45]

Yall come back now, you heah?

[MJN77]

Oh, we'll be back. I just get tired of conversing with people that know nothing of the subject they are attempting to discuss. It's like trying to have a serious conversation with a 3 year old.

[DG45]

Quote: "This fool doesn't care about fact.."
Author: MJN77

No, what this fool doesn't care about is your opinion which you masquerade as fact.

In case no one ever told you, you can't prove a positive (No cylinders were used in the Civil War) by a negative argument, (I haven't found any cylinders and don't know anybody who has) and that's what you have been trying to do on this thread.

My own opinion is that there were soldiers who carried loose cylinders for fast reloads in the Civil War. I don't try to masquerade my opinion as fact.

I simply say his:

1. That spare cylinders were known to have sometimes been used with Colt Pattersons as early as the 1840's, a fact which I believe you acknowledged being aware of somewhere earlier in this thread, and if so, then you are aware that the benefit of having an extra cylinder was not unknown, and that was long before the 1860's.

2. The Remington New Model Army Revolver which started making an appearance in the Union Army sometime in 1863 I believe (long after the fighting started in April 1861) broke down into just two pieces, 1.a cylinder, and 2. everything else, a vast improvement over the Colt which broke down into 4 pieces. The Remington revolver made cylinder swapping something that could be done with two hands and done in in a matter of seconds, once someone learned the technique, which has been referred to as a special "handshake".

3. Many Army officers, and many ordinary cavalrymen were independently wealthy, or at least the majority were well-to-do, particularly in the South, where the first requirement of being a cavalryman was that you own your own horse and tack since the Confederate government didn't supply them.

4. Any soldier who was issued or owned a Remington New Model Army revolver would have learned THE FIRST TIME HE BROKE IT DOWN INTO TWO PIECES, TO CLEAN IT, that its cylinder was easily removable, and replacable.

5. My OPINION is that some of the independently wealthy officers and cavalrymen who were issued or owned their own Remington NMA revolvers were smart enough to pick up on this. It has been noted in this thread by hawg haggen that some soldiers carried 5 or 6 revolvers at a time into battle. Surely with the arrival of the NMA in large numbers beginning about 1864, and after their possessors CLEANED THE GUN ONCE those men who'd been carrying 5 or 6 guns around with them would have realized that they could get the same firepower and travel 20 lbs lighter by simply carring loaded cylinders.

6. Nowhere in this thread has anyone and I mean NO ONE AT ALL found issue with the fact that yes indeed it was easy to change cylinders in a Remington NMA, or that it broke down into only two pieces, which I think anyone realizes made it more feasible to change cylinders than a 4 piece breakdown like Colt required.

7. Last but not least it has been acknowledged on this thread that claims have been made for a long time that this happened. I'm not the only one who ever said this. But it was mentioned that it was usually Remington enthusiasts who made the claim. My granddad said so, a long time ago. I don't know why he would have said that if he didn't believe it to be so. he didn't own a remington, and he was from the South, and most remingtons were carried by Union troops not Southern. But I call that smoke, a lot of smoke, and where there's smoke, there's usually fire.

I have no dog in the fight. I own a Colt and I own a Remington NMA. I do know its easier to change cylinders in the NMA and it takes less hands. I belive this was a reasonably common practice late in the Civil War but can't prove it. It is my OPINION. I do not masquerade mu OPINION as a fact.

8. Finally, I bear you no malice sir although you do seem to be a common scold.

This will be my last post on this thread. I expect to see one more from you because you seem to be someone who has to have the last word. You may take your best shot now sir without fear of a scathing rebuttal.