I am looking into purchasing a new army .44 cap and ball revolver. Do any of you have any experience or advice? I am thinking stainless would be best. I don't really care about the historical aspect so please save the lectures for another thread. thanks for your help.
New army .44 revolver
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OFT II
US Veteran
Great black powder revolvers. I recommend the stainless model. Use .457 round balls and you'll find that they are great shooters.
Edited to add that I am guessing that your're talking about the Ruger.
Edited to add that I am guessing that your're talking about the Ruger.
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Texas Star
US Veteran
This a repro of the Colt M-1860 New Army .44 or the Remington equivalent?
Read Col. John S. Mosby's, Memoirs for a feeling of the effectiveness of it when it was a modern sidearm.
Repro quality varies. Usually, the best seem to come from Aldo Uberti, but they make some guns with better finish and attention to detail for sale by Beretta and by Cimarron Arms.
Yes, stainless is usually the best choice for ANY practical carry gun. That goes double for those firing black powder or Pyrodex.
Usually, the Colt will fire more rounds without fouling gumming up the action, but the Remngton is stronger, with its top strap. And it can be reloaded a couple or three times before fouling becomes a serious problem.
I own both Colt and Remington repros and have handled a number of originals. I prefer the Colt grip, but the Remington has better sights. The Colt rear sight is just a notch on the hammer. Both point well, but may be sighted really high for average handgun ranges.
You are aware of the Ruger Old Army, patterned on the Whitney? If you are simply looking for a black powder revolver for legal reasons, that might be a better practical choice than the other designs. Much of the appeal to me of these guns is being able to own one like the original Colt and Remington.
BTW, I held both New Army .44 and .36 New Navy (Model 1861) Colts side-by-side, and the weight difference isn't much. I'd feel better armed with the .44.
See Elmer Keith's, Sixguns for reports of effectiveness of the originals, in reports from men who used them in earnest. He said that the .36 performed better with the higher velocity round ball of 80 grains than it did the 140 grain conventional bullet.
I saw where you live. This is all that I want to tell a Yankee about such guns. The last time you people got a bunch of these guns, you came down here and burned crops and houses!
Read Col. John S. Mosby's, Memoirs for a feeling of the effectiveness of it when it was a modern sidearm.
Repro quality varies. Usually, the best seem to come from Aldo Uberti, but they make some guns with better finish and attention to detail for sale by Beretta and by Cimarron Arms.
Yes, stainless is usually the best choice for ANY practical carry gun. That goes double for those firing black powder or Pyrodex.
Usually, the Colt will fire more rounds without fouling gumming up the action, but the Remngton is stronger, with its top strap. And it can be reloaded a couple or three times before fouling becomes a serious problem.
I own both Colt and Remington repros and have handled a number of originals. I prefer the Colt grip, but the Remington has better sights. The Colt rear sight is just a notch on the hammer. Both point well, but may be sighted really high for average handgun ranges.
You are aware of the Ruger Old Army, patterned on the Whitney? If you are simply looking for a black powder revolver for legal reasons, that might be a better practical choice than the other designs. Much of the appeal to me of these guns is being able to own one like the original Colt and Remington.
BTW, I held both New Army .44 and .36 New Navy (Model 1861) Colts side-by-side, and the weight difference isn't much. I'd feel better armed with the .44.
See Elmer Keith's, Sixguns for reports of effectiveness of the originals, in reports from men who used them in earnest. He said that the .36 performed better with the higher velocity round ball of 80 grains than it did the 140 grain conventional bullet.
I saw where you live. This is all that I want to tell a Yankee about such guns. The last time you people got a bunch of these guns, you came down here and burned crops and houses!
I am looking at the remington version from uberti or pietta. I have also read about cimarron? It seems that the ruger old army is no longer produced and parts are hard to come by. I like the idea of the top strap. It just looks stronger. I have heard that it will need to be cleaned during shooting sessions so the cylinder doesn't bind up.
calmex
Member
If you are talking about the Uberti copy of the Remington .44 cap-and-ball, it's a good firearm. In 1977, I canoed down the Missouri river from just under the Garrison Dam down into deep South Dakota. One of those mid-June to September trips that one would like to relive but never will. I bought the Remington in a Sporting Goods Supply store in Minot where we bought our Grumman 17-foot standard canoe because nobody would sell me a real gun. I was a 19-year-old Canadian, so a black powder piece was the best I could get. Oh, and Bore Butter was just coming out and they actually GAVE me some tubes to test out if I promised to bring them back a report on the stuff -- if I lived, of course. Which I did.
I loaded the thing with round balls and either Pyrodex P or FFFg, depending on what I had available. The gun was VERY reliable. Even immersed in water to a depth of my height going under off a sandbar in the middle of the river, every chamber still fired. Amazing. The gun sat in a puddle of water one night when we got flooded worse than I've ever seen -- just outside the tent where I lost it in the dark and none of our flashlights worked -- and it still fired every chamber the next day. Go ahead, don't believe me, we didn't believe it ourselves.
Things that might break? The little leaf spring that pushes the hand forward can break. You can still cock the gun Wesley Hardin style by pointing it down in front of your tootsies so that the hand falls forward by itself to engage the cylinder notches on cocking, but having a spare (or two) of that spring won't kill you. The trigger-sear leaf spring, as I recall, can also break although that one broke years after I got back from the river when I was just on the range playing with it (yes, I got it back into Canada! And it's still there, because I'm down here so it's on the wall of a friend's home now.)
The ram-rod would unlatch and fall down allowing the rammer to block the cylinder at first on full-power loads, but I filed the notch a little deeper (yes, I had a small tool-kit on the river) and that stopped that. The blue came off from the gun being daily wetted down and dried and cleaned at night and turned a purple-brown color that looks so neat. Now they charge you to give you that finish.
If you put the hammer in the notches in between chambers as a "safety" when six shots are loaded and then roll down a steep hill the notch can break the tippity-tip off your hammer so it's not a safety-notch-hammer anymore. Better to load five and keep it on an empty chamber but at least it didn't go off.
If you pound in tent-pegs late at night in the driving rain and hail using the gun as a hammer, you can chip one of your wooden stocks.
Mine shot a little high, say about 6 inches above the normal "six-o-clock-hold" point of impact at about 25 yards, but she was dead on otherwise. If you shoot a big carp sunning itself on the dead-calm Missouri River the fish sinks so quick you cannot grab it and you scare the Bejeesus out of the guy behind you in the canoe who is sunnin' himself as well and half asleep. I only tried that once. We lost all our fishin' gear in a flash flood and didn't get any back until the next town.
I had a zillion adventures with that black-powder gun that summer. The Remington was not my favorite B.P. pistol and wouldn't have been my choice except it was what I could get, I used it, and it never let me down and I cannot say enough good things about it and doubt any other B.P. pistol could have filled it's boots in 1977 or 100 years earlier.
This photo was taken a day out of Beaver Creek, North Dakota down near the South Dakota border about the 5th or 6th of July, 1977. I remember the 4th of July celebration that year we spent at the Beaver Creek campground and it was a jubilant time and we -- a pair of young Canadian adventurers trying to learn about the Missouri the hard way -- were treated like kings by all the people there. I will never forget them and think warmly of that summer and always will.
The gun is tied on to me because I sat in the front of the canoe. (I have never sat in the back of a Grumman canoe -- or any other canoe -- except once in one that was in a guy's back yard in Brandon, Manitoba. He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I had a rather good deal of time sitting in a Grumman canoe, but had never sat in the back and wanted to see what it looked like. I think he thought I was spoofing him or something).
Garrison dam threw up sandbars all over the river that came and went daily and were never on Corps of Engineers maps. I remember pulling the canoe across a sandbar in the middle of the river once where it was about 500 yards wide and we were right in the middle. You couldn't see the sandbar, it was just at water level but you could walk right on it. I was telling my friend that "People on the bank are going to see me and think I'm walking on water." He just looked at me bored and said, "As if you don't usually act like you can walk on water..." at which point I walked off the end of the sandbar in splooshed down once again into the cold Missouri. I started tying the gun into the canoe instead of to me after a few times like that, but I still tied it to me when I was on shore after stepping into a bog once off a log -- I swear the sand hardly looked any different -- and went up to my neck. The pistol went "clunk" on the other side of the log and to try to get myself pulled out far enough to reach the pistol meant my nice-new Civil War style boots seemed to be staying down under where they were. I eventually got out of that mess with my boots by curling up my toes and pulling myself up until my boots I'd bought when we canoed through Bismark started to slide off and then sticking my feet back down in them, curling the toes, and hauling up again. After that, I tied that darned gun on all the time. This photo would be taken after that little event.
If I sound opinionated it is because I would consider my experience with that particular B.P. pistol to be listed as closer to "extensive" as opposed to "somewhat". Get one if you want one, it'll win you over.
I loaded the thing with round balls and either Pyrodex P or FFFg, depending on what I had available. The gun was VERY reliable. Even immersed in water to a depth of my height going under off a sandbar in the middle of the river, every chamber still fired. Amazing. The gun sat in a puddle of water one night when we got flooded worse than I've ever seen -- just outside the tent where I lost it in the dark and none of our flashlights worked -- and it still fired every chamber the next day. Go ahead, don't believe me, we didn't believe it ourselves.
Things that might break? The little leaf spring that pushes the hand forward can break. You can still cock the gun Wesley Hardin style by pointing it down in front of your tootsies so that the hand falls forward by itself to engage the cylinder notches on cocking, but having a spare (or two) of that spring won't kill you. The trigger-sear leaf spring, as I recall, can also break although that one broke years after I got back from the river when I was just on the range playing with it (yes, I got it back into Canada! And it's still there, because I'm down here so it's on the wall of a friend's home now.)
The ram-rod would unlatch and fall down allowing the rammer to block the cylinder at first on full-power loads, but I filed the notch a little deeper (yes, I had a small tool-kit on the river) and that stopped that. The blue came off from the gun being daily wetted down and dried and cleaned at night and turned a purple-brown color that looks so neat. Now they charge you to give you that finish.
If you put the hammer in the notches in between chambers as a "safety" when six shots are loaded and then roll down a steep hill the notch can break the tippity-tip off your hammer so it's not a safety-notch-hammer anymore. Better to load five and keep it on an empty chamber but at least it didn't go off.
If you pound in tent-pegs late at night in the driving rain and hail using the gun as a hammer, you can chip one of your wooden stocks.
Mine shot a little high, say about 6 inches above the normal "six-o-clock-hold" point of impact at about 25 yards, but she was dead on otherwise. If you shoot a big carp sunning itself on the dead-calm Missouri River the fish sinks so quick you cannot grab it and you scare the Bejeesus out of the guy behind you in the canoe who is sunnin' himself as well and half asleep. I only tried that once. We lost all our fishin' gear in a flash flood and didn't get any back until the next town.
I had a zillion adventures with that black-powder gun that summer. The Remington was not my favorite B.P. pistol and wouldn't have been my choice except it was what I could get, I used it, and it never let me down and I cannot say enough good things about it and doubt any other B.P. pistol could have filled it's boots in 1977 or 100 years earlier.
This photo was taken a day out of Beaver Creek, North Dakota down near the South Dakota border about the 5th or 6th of July, 1977. I remember the 4th of July celebration that year we spent at the Beaver Creek campground and it was a jubilant time and we -- a pair of young Canadian adventurers trying to learn about the Missouri the hard way -- were treated like kings by all the people there. I will never forget them and think warmly of that summer and always will.
The gun is tied on to me because I sat in the front of the canoe. (I have never sat in the back of a Grumman canoe -- or any other canoe -- except once in one that was in a guy's back yard in Brandon, Manitoba. He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I had a rather good deal of time sitting in a Grumman canoe, but had never sat in the back and wanted to see what it looked like. I think he thought I was spoofing him or something).
Garrison dam threw up sandbars all over the river that came and went daily and were never on Corps of Engineers maps. I remember pulling the canoe across a sandbar in the middle of the river once where it was about 500 yards wide and we were right in the middle. You couldn't see the sandbar, it was just at water level but you could walk right on it. I was telling my friend that "People on the bank are going to see me and think I'm walking on water." He just looked at me bored and said, "As if you don't usually act like you can walk on water..." at which point I walked off the end of the sandbar in splooshed down once again into the cold Missouri. I started tying the gun into the canoe instead of to me after a few times like that, but I still tied it to me when I was on shore after stepping into a bog once off a log -- I swear the sand hardly looked any different -- and went up to my neck. The pistol went "clunk" on the other side of the log and to try to get myself pulled out far enough to reach the pistol meant my nice-new Civil War style boots seemed to be staying down under where they were. I eventually got out of that mess with my boots by curling up my toes and pulling myself up until my boots I'd bought when we canoed through Bismark started to slide off and then sticking my feet back down in them, curling the toes, and hauling up again. After that, I tied that darned gun on all the time. This photo would be taken after that little event.
If I sound opinionated it is because I would consider my experience with that particular B.P. pistol to be listed as closer to "extensive" as opposed to "somewhat". Get one if you want one, it'll win you over.
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semperfi71
US Veteran
calmex,
Love the pic! And the adventures.
Bill Cody (Buffalo Bill) said the exact same thing you did when he gave his Remington .44 Army to a friend, "...it never failed me."
leah,
Perhaps the cheapest way to buying a stainless Remington .44 Army is Cabelas and the Piettas. Or Buffalo Arms (on the internet).
The Piettas have a slightly larger frame than the Ubertis. These two are about the only manufacturers of the 1858 Remingtons today, unless you buy used.
What ties up a black powder cylinder is the accumulation of fouling on the front of the cylinder. Just wipe or brush it off. I have never had a cylinder bind up due to fouling on the cylinder pin inside of the cylinder.
I have shot black powder revolvers since 1973. I have at one time owned just about all of the types available, as replicas.
The absence of a top strap has no effect, or control as to strength or safety. When a revolver explodes its the cylinder that goes. The top strap goes only because the cylinder did.
A top strap DOES equate to a frame that may not "stretch" from too many hot loads. Pretty hard to do with a black powder revolver.
Stainless will be the most trouble free as to cleaning but blued revolvers are not that hard to protect. Study the cleaning of these types of revolvers and you'll find they are not that difficult to take care off. It takes me about thirty minutes to properly clean a modern smokeless revolver and about forty five minutes to clean a black powder revolver. It is the minutae required in tools and equipment to clean all of the crevices of a black powder revolver that take time.
I have heard that stainless revolver users will just pull the grips and put them in the dishwasher. I would make sure the wife or girlfriend is not around.
The serious Cowboy Action shooters use stainless (mostly Rugers) and clean them in the hydro-sonic cleaning machines and solvents. They blow and wipe the solvents off and oil them.
I use factory, greased wads between ball and powder and Treso/Ampco nipples. These nipples are machined to better tolerances than the factory nipples and therefore the percussion caps stay on the weapons a lot better.
For my experiences the Pietta revolvers shoot to point of aim at 25 yards.
With both the Pietta and Uberti 1858 Remington models you can buy a .45 Colt cylinder that will allow you to shoot factory safe (no hot loads) .45 Colt smokeless ammunition.
My Pietta with the standard cylinder shoots to point of aim at 25 yards and with the .45 Colt cylinder and my load of 35 grains of FFFG and a 235 grain bullet will also shoot to point of aim at 25 yards.
Good luck!
Love the pic! And the adventures.
Bill Cody (Buffalo Bill) said the exact same thing you did when he gave his Remington .44 Army to a friend, "...it never failed me."
leah,
Perhaps the cheapest way to buying a stainless Remington .44 Army is Cabelas and the Piettas. Or Buffalo Arms (on the internet).
The Piettas have a slightly larger frame than the Ubertis. These two are about the only manufacturers of the 1858 Remingtons today, unless you buy used.
What ties up a black powder cylinder is the accumulation of fouling on the front of the cylinder. Just wipe or brush it off. I have never had a cylinder bind up due to fouling on the cylinder pin inside of the cylinder.
I have shot black powder revolvers since 1973. I have at one time owned just about all of the types available, as replicas.
The absence of a top strap has no effect, or control as to strength or safety. When a revolver explodes its the cylinder that goes. The top strap goes only because the cylinder did.
A top strap DOES equate to a frame that may not "stretch" from too many hot loads. Pretty hard to do with a black powder revolver.
Stainless will be the most trouble free as to cleaning but blued revolvers are not that hard to protect. Study the cleaning of these types of revolvers and you'll find they are not that difficult to take care off. It takes me about thirty minutes to properly clean a modern smokeless revolver and about forty five minutes to clean a black powder revolver. It is the minutae required in tools and equipment to clean all of the crevices of a black powder revolver that take time.
I have heard that stainless revolver users will just pull the grips and put them in the dishwasher. I would make sure the wife or girlfriend is not around.
The serious Cowboy Action shooters use stainless (mostly Rugers) and clean them in the hydro-sonic cleaning machines and solvents. They blow and wipe the solvents off and oil them.
I use factory, greased wads between ball and powder and Treso/Ampco nipples. These nipples are machined to better tolerances than the factory nipples and therefore the percussion caps stay on the weapons a lot better.
For my experiences the Pietta revolvers shoot to point of aim at 25 yards.
With both the Pietta and Uberti 1858 Remington models you can buy a .45 Colt cylinder that will allow you to shoot factory safe (no hot loads) .45 Colt smokeless ammunition.
My Pietta with the standard cylinder shoots to point of aim at 25 yards and with the .45 Colt cylinder and my load of 35 grains of FFFG and a 235 grain bullet will also shoot to point of aim at 25 yards.
Good luck!
kamloops67
Member
calmex: sounds like an adventure of a lifetime.. you saw deliverance right? i guess a c&b 44 is better than a compound bow for canoe work 
calmex
Member
calmex: sounds like an adventure of a lifetime.. you saw deliverance right? i guess a c&b 44 is better than a compound bow for canoe work
Hey, Kamloops. We had seen Deliverance. Talked about it often. My friend bought an old Model 94 .30-30 off a Missouri River farmer about a month into the trip. Not that we met a lot of scarey people, but we were out there on our own and we knew it.
In fact, when we bought our Canoe and stuff at the Minot Sporting Goods Wholesalers, his selling point on the lifejackets was "Just like they wore in that Burt Reynold's movie Deliverance." I mean, give it a break, already, I thought.
Then I said: "Uh, you don't sell pistols, do you?"
I think the relevance of shooting one of the Colt 3rd model black powder pistols is worth mentioning, after all a Colt is and always will be a Colt. I still kick myself for parting with a last issued 3rd model Dragoon, I didn't care for the way the loading ramp would come loose on full power "magnum" loads. I've owned a couple Pietta 1858 Remingtons for some time picked them up from a guy that wanted to go a little heavier into cowboy shootem up stuff and got the pair with two extra cylinders for a song, one was the shorter barreled model the other the long barrel. A buddy of mine had to have the short model so I let him have it for what I paid for the pair, it was that good a deal. Both of us have shot the pistols and neither one have given us any trouble, you will eventually find the powder charge that works for you and can then fill up the rest of the cylinder with cream of rice, I seem to remember my best accuracy load is 25grs of FFF...it'll print a real nice group at 25yds to point of aim.
Forgot to mention that I have a Ruger Old Army and don't care for way the triggerguard impacts my forefinger, this can be remedied by installing an old model Superblackhawk Dragoon style trigger guard but they have gotten scarce as hen's teeth, that and the fact that the trigger guard is made of aluminum, which has no place on a proper blackpowder pistol or rifle.
Forgot to mention that I have a Ruger Old Army and don't care for way the triggerguard impacts my forefinger, this can be remedied by installing an old model Superblackhawk Dragoon style trigger guard but they have gotten scarce as hen's teeth, that and the fact that the trigger guard is made of aluminum, which has no place on a proper blackpowder pistol or rifle.
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calmex
Member
Leah:
I would like to add that either shortly after I got back to Canada from the river or the next summer the friend who had accompanied me on the trip and who had seen me clean that sucker every day over a 3 month time-span -- often unloading it by removing the nipples and pokin' out the powder and then the ball from the rear as to not fire the pistol and let the whole World know where we were when we were on Indian Reservation land which might or might not have caused us grief (why bother to find out?) -- showed me an ad for a STAINLESS STEEL 1858 Remington.
"What???" I cried. "They made them in Stainless???"
I was not upset about the loss of tradition. I was upset because I had not had one! I do not know exactly when the stainless ones came out for general use, but I bought mine in Minot in around June 12 or 13 of 1977 because we put into the water on the 14th as I recall. They did not have a stainless one, and I got mine for 95.00 bucks at the time with the nipple wrench and a powder flask. I thought it was a good deal, at a time when a Grumman 17-foot standard cost about 275.00 bucks or so IIRC at the dealer pricing which was what we paid. It was a long time ago, but we were not rich although interested people helped us out to make it an affordable project.
I would have had a stainless one so quick it would have made your head spin if I had been able to, but I got what I got. It served me well. Do not feel a bit hesitant to get a stainless one if you can because I sure would have.
By the way, I did the "reload everyday thing" because at the time the best literature I had been able to read said you should. I found out by forced circumstance on that trip that going three or four days did not seem to bother anything and the unfired powder in the cylinders did not seem to draw the moisture I had been led to believe it would. But that was only one instance and might not be considered a general rule I suppose.
These days, when I watch a series like Deadwood or something from the Black Powder days, it's nice to turn to the wife and say, "Well, I did that." And mean it.
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IcarryS&W
Member
Another Remington advantage...
One other 'advantage' of the Remington is the ability to quickly change cylinders. One can keep an extra cylinder loaded and quickly change it for the empty one...not quite as easy with a Colt.
I have both types and each have their good points. I like the grips better on the Colts.
--John R.
One other 'advantage' of the Remington is the ability to quickly change cylinders. One can keep an extra cylinder loaded and quickly change it for the empty one...not quite as easy with a Colt.
I have both types and each have their good points. I like the grips better on the Colts.
--John R.
Texas Star
US Veteran
calmex-
What a super account of your adventure! Thanks for posting.
What a super account of your adventure! Thanks for posting.
LoboGunLeather
US Veteran
The OP specifically stated that he did not want to get into the historical aspects of this subject matter, so all I will add is that I own two original Remington New Army revolvers (1863 and 1864 production). Both were delivered to the Union Army during the Civil War. Both remain in functional condition today, despite 150-plus years since their manufacture.
I call that a good piece of design and manufacturing work!
I call that a good piece of design and manufacturing work!
calmex
Member
In 2009 I took my wife on her first visit to Canada more-or-less sponsored by a couple that had "many questions about retirement in Mexico". While there, I had a chance to pass by and visit an old friend. I know I'm hamming it up here and should be shot for it, but this photo was probably the first time in 25 years that the Remington copy -- loaded or unloaded -- had been stuck in my belt (something that had been a daily occurance on the Missouri River).
Experience had taught me to tie the darned gun onto me, because unscheduled dunkings into the River itself were also a frequent occurance, and the water was cold! In this photo you can see the little chip taken out of the stock trying to pound in a tent peg -- in the dark, in the rain with hail stones falling all around as the two of us, soaking wet and cold tried to get the tent up well enough to get inside and get into our sleeping bags to warm up before we froze. That happened just across the River from Fort Yates in early July I think and remains as the most uncomfortable night I have spent in my life. That night, to this day, defines to me "unseasonably cold".
Experience had taught me to tie the darned gun onto me, because unscheduled dunkings into the River itself were also a frequent occurance, and the water was cold! In this photo you can see the little chip taken out of the stock trying to pound in a tent peg -- in the dark, in the rain with hail stones falling all around as the two of us, soaking wet and cold tried to get the tent up well enough to get inside and get into our sleeping bags to warm up before we froze. That happened just across the River from Fort Yates in early July I think and remains as the most uncomfortable night I have spent in my life. That night, to this day, defines to me "unseasonably cold".
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