Driftwood Johnson
Member
Yes, the cylinder is much easier to pop out on a Remington 1858 than on any Open Top Colt design. No wedge to deal with.
Somewhere I have a photo of Clint Eastwood changing cylinders in his cartridge conversion 1858 in Pale Rider.
I have a pair of 1858s with 45 Colt conversion cylinders. These cylinders are the type with a separate cap that fits over the rear of the cylinder, so no loading gate is involved. Very simple to pop out the cylinder. You drop the loading lever, pull the cylinder pin forward and roll the cylinder out. Then you poke out the empties and reload with fresh cartridges. Very quick and simple.
As mentioned, the downfall of the 1858 design is the cylinder binds up with fouling very quickly. That is because there is no bushing on the front of the cylinder to deflect fouling blasted out of the barrel/cylinder gap away from the cylinder pin. Cartridge conversion cylinder on the left, standard C&B cylinder on the right.
So fouling blasted out of the gap gets deposited directly onto the cylinder pin.
I have always considered that to be a design defect with the 1858 Remington. With my conversion cylinders I will wipe off the face of the cylinder with a damp cloth every time I pop it out to reload. That helps somewhat in keeping the cylinder from binding with BP fouling. Probably could not do that very well in the heat of battle, and I don't recall Clint doing that either.
Colts do not have a bushing on the front of the cylinder either, but the arbor is much larger in diameter, and it has a helical clearance cut to create a gap for fouling to collect without binding the cylinder. You will notice in this photo that I cut a few grooves around the pin on this 1858. I used to load the grooves with Bore Butter to help keep the cylinder rolling, but it did not help much.
Smith and Wesson had been putting bushings on the front of their cylinders since the Top Break American model came out in 1869. Not an American, this New Model Number Three cylinder shows the typical bushing pressed into the front of the cylinder.
This photo shows how the S&W system worked. The front of the cylinder is next to the forcing cone, the cylinder bushing directly below the barrel/cylinder gap deflects fouling away from the underlying cylinder arbor. This system works very well, I can fire a revolver like this with Black Powder loads all day and the cylinder never binds up from fouling. Incidentally, the reason the modern reproduction S&W Top Break cylinders do not do so good with Black Powder is because Uberti decided to shorten the bushing. They did this because they lengthened the cylinders to accept longer cartridges like 45 Colt, without lengthening the frame a corresponding amount. There is still a bushing there, but it is much shorter and does not deflect fouling away from the arbor the way the original design did.
When Colt put out the Single Action Army in 1873, they included a bushing at the front of the cylinder. This close up of an old Bisley shows the bushing in position to deflect fouling blasted out of the b/c gap away from the cylinder pin.
When Remington brought out their cartridge revolver in 1875, they included a bushing on the front of the cylinder. Remington Model 1890 and Model 1875, showing the bushings on the front of the cylinders.
Left to right, Remington Model 1890 cylinder, Remington Model 1875 Cylinder, Colt Single Action Cylinder with its removeable bushing, and S&W New Model Number Three cylinder with its pressed in bushing.
