1863 Remington Pocket Revolvers

I've been an avid reader and fan of this site for quite some time now, however, I just today registered as a member: so please bear with me as this is my first question, and I'm not entirely sure if it's even in the correct area.

I purchased the cva/asm 1863 Remington Pocket Revolver, brass framed, from a friend of mine. The thing is an absolute blast to play around with. My ONLY problem is that I play heck with inserting the cylinder back in the frame after bench loading. It's almost as if you have to hold your tongue just right while rotating it slightly, and Still....sometimes, it's just LUCK when it finally falls in place.
Am I alone with this problem, or is there a method I'm not aware of?

Welcome to the forum. :thumbsup:

Sure! Your question is in the right place.

Yes, the Remingtons are a bit fussy about inserting the cylinder into the frame.

This is because the "hand" that rotates the cylinder is sticking out at the rear of the opening and it gets in the way of the cylinder as you try to install it.

The trick is to hold the gun, right side up and lay the cylinder in place.
Then, rotate the cylinder clockwise (aft looking forward) while lightly pressing it further in.

This usually pushes the hand back out of the way and the cylinder will drop in place.

If it doesn't work, try again. :grin:

Just in case your wondering, the Remington Pocket Revolvers were made by Remington in both brass frame and steel frame models.
I mention this because some people think the brass framed model is a Confederate copy. It isn't.

I can't say I blame you for bench loading your cylinder out of the pistol.
That's the way I loaded mine back when I owned one.

That little loading lever looks cute but it doesn't provide enough power to swage a roundball into the chambers.

Thank you sir. That works better. While removing the cylinder, holding the pistol in my right hand,right side down, it falls nicely out. I was attempting to replace it back in the same side. Replacing it from the left side, rotating counter clockwise it seemed to go back into place easy.

Well, the important thing is you've figured out how to get the cylinder in.

I remove and install the cylinder on my Remington from the right side of the gun which explains why I said to rotate the cylinder clockwise. :grin:

Lol. I wasn't trying to be different with the left side replacement of the cylinder. I swear, the darn thing just doesn't want to get seated from the right side, even though that's the side it's removed from. I literally have never had this problem with any of my other revolvers. And thought something was perhaps different with this model. That's one reason the gentleman sold it to me for $25. He couldn't put the cylinder back in.

On one of my older 1858 replicas, I have to fiddle with the hammer buy pulling it back as I insert the cylinder to get the hand to retract a bit. It fires fine and seems to have no other problems.

I think, of my percussion revolvers, I have the most problem with getting the cylinder back into my ROA. It's not much of a problem but does seem to be the gun that takes the most time for me.

Speaking of the ROA,I've made the mistake of bending the base pin. I then made an even worse mistake of carrying it around in my pocket in search of someone to either repair or replace it...well, needless to say, I LOST it. I don't like the Belt Mountain version and would greatly appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction of finding another.