Pietta Remington 1863 Questions

[rodwha]

I am interested in this little pistol, and a few questions...

1) Is the base pin removable or is it like the 1858 with the 5.5" barrel in which it only slides enough to remove the cylinder, but is obstructed by the lever latch?

2) Do these often have chambers that don't line up well with the barrel?

3) Are the chambers often much smaller than the groove diameter?

4) Is the loading lever assembly rather fragile? If so what usually bends/breaks?

5) I've tried to find the groove/land, and chambers diameters, but cannot seem to find this. Does anyone know?

6) I've seen differing chamber capacity (3F) of 12-15 grns. Can anyone verify? And is this max capacity an actual chamber full prior to seating a ball? For instance I can literally fill my Old Army chamber, and still seat a bare ball, which leaves the ball slightly below the chamber mouth.

7) Does a .319" RB shave a ring?

 

[Paul_R]

I would consider any revolver to be defective if the chambers didn't line up well with the barrel with the hammer cocked all the way back. Just my 2 cents.

 

[rodwha]

I would too, and hearing that the chambers are often much smaller than groove diameter, I've heard of having the chambers reamed to proper size/correct alignment. I'd prefer not to have to spend the extra money to make it function well.

 

[BGRooster1]

Before answering your questions, I have one of my own. When are you going to buy one ?lol
Answers to your questions.
1. Base pin is restricted by the loading lever latch. It does not come off.
2. My chambers are perfectly aligned.
3. Yes
4. Mine feels fine but take the cylinder off the frame ( I don't want to take the chance ) to load when I can.I try not to grab the end of the lever when using it but close as I can to the swivel point.
5. I can't answer that as I only have used 3f 777 when I first bought it and 4F Goex ever since.
6. Chambers are .315 and .319 will shave a ring but higher velocities have been recorded using .323. I use the .323 and as said before load off the frame.
rodwha, Just go and get one. You know how bad you want one,been asking about these for a year haven't you.

 

[rodwha]

The first thing on my list is to stock up on shooting supplies as I've seen how quickly it became nearly impossible to find stuff.

Part of my problem is that my other bigger expense hobby is brewing beer, which I really enjoy (the process, as well as the consumption).

As much as I'm drawn to this little pistol it seems as though there may not be any other use other than a range toy. And that would be OK, but I do prefer things I find more useful.

I also really want a .44 cal Rem 1858, and I'm not really sure which of the two I figure to top the list.

I'll likely end up with one of these regardless as I'm just drawn, much as I am to the Walker.

 

[rodwha]

Do you find it hard to clean the frame/cylinder pin area? It seems it would be harder to clean it well.

Do you know what the groove/land diameters are?

 

[BGRooster1]

Because of not being able to remove the cylinder pin .It is an area I goop up good with a BP type grease. I don't believe that part of the revolver is going to be damaged in a life time or even two life times unless the revolver has really been neglected from day one.
If I remember right my measurements were .315 for the chambers and the barrel was .319/.323. I know after measuring all I could picture was the ball bouncing back and forth down the barrel barely touching anything along the way.lol
I would ream the chambers but then I wanted to pick up a .32 S&W conversion cylinder which won't shoot well down that huge for caliber barrel as seen on Mike's video. If only someone made a barrel in .314-.315

 

[Eljay]

I have one. It's mechanically fine, everything lines up that's supposed to line up. Shoots really high but with not too bad accuracy at 7 yards. But I have to aim literally a foot below where I want to hit.

I'd believe the chambers are a little smaller than .315 - I've actually shot it with .315 balls and it compresses down the edges but doesn't shave a ring as such. .319 or just 0 buck are reasonable choices, and I think I've tried .321.

What else... it's the one revolver I use lube over the balls on, because I tried it once with wads and I couldn't fit much powder in with wads and the balls. I load it with 10 grains 777 + balls and that works nicely.

I load off the frame, since I'd also heard that the lever can break and it's so short there's just not much leverage.

It's fun and pleasant to shoot although the lack of a trigger guard takes a little getting used to.

 

[rodwha]

Shooting that high isn't acceptable to me, and figured I'd likely have it modified to shoot on at 7 to 15 yds.

I have quit using wads, and never used any sort of over ball lube, and likely wouldn't here either, especially using triple 7.

The lack of trigger guard turned me off initially, and I've seen a pic some time back in which a guard was fabricated. I've considered this too, but am not so put off by the lack of now. It still does seem strange though.

 

[Zonie]

See how a little fib can become a matter of common "truth"?

The title of this topic says "Remington 1863" and I guess that's what Pietta calls it.

It actually is a Remington 1865. That is the first year it was made.

1863 is the year that Remington came out with the New Model Army, New Model Navy which everyone mistakenly calls a Remington 1858.

Remington's first big Army pistol was the Remington-Beals and it carried the marking, BEALS PATENT SEPT, 14, 1858.
Because of the Patent date everyone seems to think it was made in that year so they call it the
Remington 1858.
It wasn't made until 1861.

Getting back to your questions about the 1865 Pocket Remington

1. The base pin works just like the larger Remingtons

2. The chambers line up quite nicely on mine.

3. Yes, the chambers are slightly smaller than the groove diameter in the barrel. This seems to be a common thing with Italian replicas.

4. The loading lever is very small and doesn't have much leverage. It does work though.

5. Dixie Gunworks 2011 catalog says it has .315 diameter chambers. They say the barrel has a .310 diameter bore and .326 diameter grooves.

 

[Long Johns Wolf]

Regarding #3 & FWIW: I don't know about the .31 cal C&B revolvers but in the original .36 and .44 caliber C&B Remington and Colt revolvers that I measured it appears that these guns were built with undersized chambers back then compared to their rifling groove dia.
This was copied by the Italians incl. the 2nd and 3rd gen. Colts in these calibers.
The only percussion revolvers that I know of who had their chambers adjusted to rifling groove dia were the .44 cal. Belgian made Centaures (Colt 1860 pattern) and most of the Spanish made Santa Barbaras (Remmy NM 1863 Army pattern).
Long Johns Wolf

 

[Eljay]

re: hitting high - mine's purely a range gun, so I just know which to ring to hold on the target I use so that it hits the bullseye. :grin: I don't think any of my cap and ball revolvers hit to point of aim at those kind of distances - usually a 6 o'clock hold on my 6" sticky target is really close though. This is the only one I have that needs the extra distance.

I imagine they wanted to keep that front sight really low/snag free and really if you were shooting a poker cheat across a table it's not going to make any difference. If you're thinking of it as some kind of snake/rodent gun... it's just not intended for that. I'd have accuracy concerns with that small sight radius if nothing else.