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tom in nc

45 Cal.
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This 1858 Remington replica is for sale locally. I cannot go to see it until Wednesday morning. The seller says it looks like new, as the pics show. He is asking $200, but that is negotiable. Some ammo and powder may be included. I guess it is a Uberti or a Pietta, won't know till I see it though. He says I am welcome to load it and try it out.
I have a brass-framed 1860 Colt Army that I bought in 1974 and I would like to have this Remington if if checks out ok. We'll see.
 
I am not a Remington NMA fan only because the grips don't feel right in my hand (I am one of those Colt guys!). That said, your prospective purchase looks very nice: steel frame (not brass), no apparent turn ring or bolt misalignment on the cylinder, and it has the target sights. I believe it is a Pietta Target Model .44:

https://www.emf-company.com/store/pc/1858-REMINGTON-TARGET-MODEL-44-8-111p1195.htm

When you examine it, look for the date code (two alpha characters in a rectangle). If it is [BP] or higher, it is a CNC machined revolver manufactured after ~2000 and replacement Pietta parts are basically drop in if something goes south.

If the seller is willing to dicker a bit go for it! Even at $200 it is a good purchase.

On the plus side, if you wish to obtain a Kirst (or similar) .45 Colt conversion cylinder for it, cylinder changes are a snap compared to a Colt.

Regards,

Jim
 
I recently bought a Euroarms 1858 with the target sights.

Very nice with very nice sights! Beats the heck out of the U-channel on the frame topstrap. If I may ask, what is the date code of your revolver?

I am partial to older replicas of any flavor and like to learn about them. I don't want to hijack this thread but I have a Pietta 1851 Navy .36 4-screw cut-for-stock [AZ]/1990. Pietta has not marketed one for over two decades, and this is definitely not a CNC gun.



Back to our regularly scheduled program.

Regards,

Jim
 
I have a pair of 1858 target. Very fine shooters. So fine they are my go to and with 6 spare cylinders they get a work out. Hit a 2 inch center at 25 yards all day. 200, get it.
 
The date code for my Euroarms Target pistol is XXX or 1974.

What is interesting about my pistol in addition to the target sights, is that the cylinder mouth is rebated to a measure of 0.459" with a chamber diameter of 0.440". I can load my 0.454 ball and push it to chamber mouth height. The barrel is 0.440" land to land.

This pistol was built to be a shooter.

I need to get back to the range and practice.
 
4855774_95447542536ab2c3_800X600_1.jpg

4855774_46fd52c1d2fe43de_800X600_1.jpg

This 1858 Remington replica is for sale locally. I cannot go to see it until Wednesday morning. The seller says it looks like new, as the pics show. He is asking $200, but that is negotiable. Some ammo and powder may be included. I guess it is a Uberti or a Pietta, won't know till I see it though. He says I am welcome to load it and try it out.
I have a brass-framed 1860 Colt Army that I bought in 1974 and I would like to have this Remington if if checks out ok. We'll see.
If it is a Pietta they make a replacement cylinder for the Shooters Model which has .456 chambers. I’m not 100% sure it fits the older Pietta 1858 but if you buy it from a reputable dealer with a return policy, you could be in possession of a very good target pistol for cheap!
 
The date code for my Euroarms Target pistol is XXX or 1974.

What is interesting about my pistol in addition to the target sights, is that the cylinder mouth is rebated to a measure of 0.459" with a chamber diameter of 0.440". I can load my 0.454 ball and push it to chamber mouth height. The barrel is 0.440" land to land.

This pistol was built to be a shooter.

I need to get back to the range and practice.

Just me but I ream cylinder bore to +.001/.002 of barrel max groove to groove. It has improved accuracy without doubt. The last I did was a Walker. Barrel max was .447. Took the cylinder up to a tight .450. Slight angle increase to cone plus polish. Dressed the crown just till there was an even bevel of the lands to the bottom of the grooves. Now what was 6-7 high and 6-7 right at 25 yards is 4-4.5 high, which is typical of the Walker, and dead on.
 
4855774_95447542536ab2c3_800X600_1.jpg

4855774_46fd52c1d2fe43de_800X600_1.jpg

This 1858 Remington replica is for sale locally. I cannot go to see it until Wednesday morning. The seller says it looks like new, as the pics show. He is asking $200, but that is negotiable. Some ammo and powder may be included. I guess it is a Uberti or a Pietta, won't know till I see it though. He says I am welcome to load it and try it out.
I have a brass-framed 1860 Colt Army that I bought in 1974 and I would like to have this Remington if if checks out ok. We'll see.
I have one just like it , a Pietta about 34years old that took quite a bit of work to make it shoot well. It is more accurate than my ROA now.
 
Unless something bad shows up when you inspect it, that is an excellent price. The prices I see for new versions of that 1858 are well over a hundred bucks more. Should be a great deal.

Jeff
 
I got my Pietta Remington today, for less than the $200 asking price. According to the "BI" code it was mfd in 1997. The only marks on the pistol are on the cylinder where someone has unfortunately spun the cylinder while holding the hammer back only part way, not on half cock. How's the best way to touch that up? The gun appears to have not been shot much. The seller said he had never fired it. I intend to shoot it.
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Tom,

The drag line on the cylinder is because the bolt head rides too high out of the frame, and it is too wide for the cylinder stop slots, as evidenced by the minor peening on both sides of the slots. You can use a good grade of cold blue to touch these places up, but they will reappear unless the bolt dimensions are addressed.

I will use Colt parts as illustration, and these are from Pettifogger's files. Rem cylinders do not have the slot approaches ("leade") like a Colt, but the principle is the same.





I took the liberty of retouching your photo showing "A" and "B" for reference.



Hope this helps.

Regards,

Jim
 
Here's a pic of the gun with the cylinder removed so we can see the bolt. What exactly needs to be done here? I don't want to do the wrong thing or too much.
20200219_183509.jpg
 
Tom,

The very minor peening of the cylinder stop slot sides is nothing to worry about unless you are a perfectionist (I am not) and the gun will function just fine. A couple of my Pietta 1851 Navy revolvers show that and I am good to go with that.

Very good photo. The bolt head shows the correct top slope (refer to my photo) but the higher side of the bolt (left side in your photo) does not appear to be exactly vertical. The only problem with this is that you may possibly encounter bolt "bounce" causing the cylinder to over-rotate if you cock the hammer very quickly. Not a problem for slow casual use, but if you are a CAS/SASS shooter it can cause problems.

However, if you wish to rid yourself of the drag line/turn ring, it should be fairly easy to rectify.

Remove the cylinder, place the hammer at half-cock and see if some of the bolt head protrudes enough from the frame to contact the cylinder where the turn ring is. Do the same at full cock and see if it is the same. I say this because the bolt cam on the side of the hammer (it looks like a very broad axe bit angle for lack of a better description) that retracts the bolt may be worn. That is possibly one reason for the turn ring, but not usually the case on a slightly used gun.

The easiest fix is to use a black Sharpie pen/marker and heavily color the turn ring and the top of the bolt in the vicinity of the turn ring. Reassemble the gun and cycle it a couple dozen times. Remove the cylinder, see if the black Sharpie ink is worn through on the bolt. Judiciously remove some metal on the top of the bolt in that area and repeat until there is no removal of the Sharpie ink. You will no longer have cylinder/bolt contact and you can cold blue the turn ring and call it good.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Jim
 
Sourdough, thanks for the help. Here are a couple more pics as best I could do. I'm trying to show that, at half cock the bolt is well below the frame and cannot contact the cylinder. One pic is with the cylinder removed and one attempting to show the gap with the cylinder in place. That it why I thought the damage to the cylinder has been done by someone holding the hammer part-way back but not quite to the half cock position. That's the only way I see to make the bolt "rub" on the cylinder. You might be right if there is something that I don't understand or I am not seeing. Also, the scratch is not "consistent" all around the cylinder, but deeper in places, like thumb pressure on the hammer varied while the damage was being done?
20200219_220211.jpg
20200219_220504.jpg

In the second pic the gap between the frame and the bottom of the cylinder can be seen just above the reflection. The bolt, if it were up, proud of the frame would be about where the reflection is. Both these pics were taken with the pistol at half cock. Thanks again, and tell me what you think, please.
 
I'll use your third picture with the revolver pointing right as my reference. You'll notice the line is separated with a gap near the middle of the rotation. The line above the gap is the bolt drop which is normal at half distance or a bit more and actually a positive thing in that it retards (brakes) the cylinders rotational inertia before the bolt drops into the notch and slams into the far side. That is the reason for the lead in cuts on later revolvers. The line before is a bolt drag line and is usually corrected by polishing the bolt top and putting a small stoned chamfer around the bolt top circumference and the frame window. Polishing the bolt top and corners shortens it a bit and keeps the corners from galling the cylinder. The line hurts nothing if the timing is correct which is regulated by bolt finger, hammer cam , hand length and nose shape. A buggered ratchet or excessive cylinder/barrel gap can also have an effect if out of spec on open frame guns.
One thing I have noticed occasionally on these revolvers is the hand trying to turn the cylinder before the hammer cam has lifted it enough to entirely clear the notch. This often is a result of the far side of the notch having a burr raised either by quick hammer action (fanning) or timing issues on the bolt lift.
Cold blue will never get rid of the line and the drop side will always be there to one degree or another no matter how often you blue it. The bolt must drop and make firm contact with the cylinder before the notch lines up or it will skip over. A late bolt drop can mess up cylinder notches. A late lift is not good either and are both timing issues.
You will also want to check a couple more things before the gun can reach it's full accuracy potential.
Check the barrel bore diameter under the threads where it goes through the frame , this area will usually be some what constricted from thread compression when the barrel is torqued on and needs lapped out to be level with the rest of the bore.
The next check is the chamber mouths for diameter and roundness. They need to be all the same. They will often be smaller than your barrel groove diameter which should be the same as the chamber mouths and not more than .001 over.
This is also a good time to check the forcing cone and muzzle crown for evenness of width and depth.
 
  • a Wolff Spring Colt Peacemaker wire trigger & bolt spring + reduced power mainspring will make it shoot like a dream.....along with mirror polishing all contact points & carefully trueing the head on your cyl. bolt per the instructions posted.
  • That's a very nice revolver with a LOT of potential !

  • Placing the gun in half cock....if you can see bolt head protrusion, it's too high, (i've never seen one as tall as yours before) and the dropaway angle doesn't need to ne NEARLY as sharp as it is.....I make mine almost flat, and have never had lockup failure.
  • If you ever plan on carrying it w/all 6 chambers loaded, be sure your safety notches between the nipple notches are filed out well enough to accept the full width of the hammer strike face as deep as it will sit, this is almost never correct on factory guns, especially of the pre 2005 era......cold blue or a "spot" fire blue will hide this modification.
 
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Sourdough, thanks for the help. Here are a couple more pics as best I could do. I'm trying to show that, at half cock the bolt is well below the frame and cannot contact the cylinder. One pic is with the cylinder removed and one attempting to show the gap with the cylinder in place. That it why I thought the damage to the cylinder has been done by someone holding the hammer part-way back but not quite to the half cock position. That's the only way I see to make the bolt "rub" on the cylinder. You might be right if there is something that I don't understand or I am not seeing. Also, the scratch is not "consistent" all around the cylinder, but deeper in places, like thumb pressure on the hammer varied while the damage was being done?
View attachment 24523 View attachment 24524
In the second pic the gap between the frame and the bottom of the cylinder can be seen just above the reflection. The bolt, if it were up, proud of the frame would be about where the reflection is. Both these pics were taken with the pistol at half cock. Thanks again, and tell me what you think, please.

from those photos, the cylinder really WAS damaged by careless handling....wow......but, i'd still break the very top edge of the bolt just to be sure.
 
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