[kletus]

Anyone know how the arbor/cylinder pin stays in place under recoil in an 1861 Remington army?
There is a channel cut into the loading lever to facilitate cylinder changes without dropping the lever, a faster more secure system I believe.
How would one convert an 1858 this way?
Anyone actually handled one of these rare guns?
Also looking at pictures of this pistol it appears that there is not enough clearence to move the pin ahead, how did they accomplish this design?

[Tommygunn]

IIRC the loading lever had a slot cut along the top of it. This allowed the pin to move forward and supposedly allowed for faster cylinder changes.
The downside was that the pin often moved forward under recoild and allowed the cylinder to fall out the side when cocking.
Also (IIRC) this was corrected in some models by placing a screw atop the loading lever which held the pin in, thus effectively meaning you again had to lower the lever to reload.
I've never seen one, but I've read of them. That is, assuming I've interpreted your post correctly.
I don't know why you'd want to convert an 1858 to that design, but you'd have to mill off the top of the loading ever until it allowed the pin to come out far enough to free the cylinder.