Trego's Mountain Ear

I’ve finally found a chance for alliteration.  In prose, not poetry.  The challenge was finding parts for an old, black powder revolver.  My revolver is inscribed with ‘EuroArms’ and looked like this when I bought it a bit over 50 years ago:

There was a lot I didn’t know back then – I knew that you could keep a spare cylinder loaded and change cylinders a little faster than you could reload a Single Action Army, so I made sure I had that spare cylinder.  I thought it was an 1858 New Model Army – but it’s just a little smaller in the grips than the others.  Turns out it’s a copy of the Remington Beals belt revolver – and the Italians at Armi San Paolo made it so the parts would interchange with the original revolvers made for Union use in the war between the states.

Back in the Fall of 1861, Samuel Remington went to Washington with a proposition that he would sell his revolvers to the government for $15 each – ten bucks less than Sam Colt was charging for his.  When the Ordinance Department asked for 44 caliber, Sam said “Sure!” and just drilled a bigger hole in the cylinders and barrel.  By the end of March, 1862, Sam Remington had delivered 7,250 36 caliber revolvers, and 750 44 caliber Remington-Beals revolvers.  After that early bunch, all of the 44 caliber Remingtons were the New Model Army – but the folks at Armi San Paolo copied the earlier revolver.  So I can understand why the replacement grips I ordered didn’t fit, and why I had to mill away ten thousandths to make my spare cylinder fit.

Since there are a lot of 1858 New Army Remington Replicas floating around, mostly made by 4 different groups of Italians, I’m writing this to share how to tell them apart.  After I removed the cylinders, I measured each with my dial caliper.  The Uberti measured 2.00 inches.  The Pietta (one of which I milled down) measured 2.016 inches.  My Euroarms by Armi San Paolo measured 2.006.  I’m fairly sure that the Armi San Marco revolvers match mine – but would appreciate it if a reader who owns one would pull the cylinder, measure it and get back to me.

When I was considering a Kirst 45 cartridge cylinder, I was told that the Uberti would fit.  I guess it would, but I still have the belief that those extra ten thousandths of cylinder gap wouldn’t do anything beneficial to accuracy or safety.  My old revolver stayed cap and ball.

As I’m writing this, I realized that Buffalo Bill Cody used his New Model Army from 1863 to 1906, and commented that “It never failed me.”  I’ve had mine for 51 years – and while I can agree with Bill that “It never failed me.”  I have had to replace the front sight, a pin in the loading lever, and really should buy a new set of grips – but I know Cody bought new grips for his revolver.