Driftwood Johnson
Member
You talking about this one?
Howdy
No, he's talking about this one. What you have pictured is the 1858 Conversion model that comes set up to fire cartridges. These are 1858 Cap & Ball revolvers. The top one is a Stainless Uberti, the bottom one is an old EuroArms/Armi San Paolo that I bought back around 1975. If you look closely, both of these Remmies are wearing cartridge conversion cylinders. The Stainless Uberti came complete with the conversion cylinder when I bought it used some years ago, I bought the conversion cylinder for the older one a few years ago.
One other thing to notice is the front sight on my old EuroArms Remmie is taller than the original sight. Back in the 1970s these guns were imported with much lower front sights. That caused them to shoot pretty high. Before buying the conversion cylinder I had a smith mount a taller front sight from Uberti on the gun. He had to open up the dovetail in order to do so, but the taller sight brought the point of impact down where I wanted it.
Most Remmies today are being imported with a taller front sight pretty much like you see here.
Here is a view of just the old EuroArms with its conversion cylinder. Yes, the frame of the old EuroArms Remmie is slightly smaller than the Uberti, and it weighs a few ounces less. Regarding recoil, that was never a problem with the old EuroArms Remmie while shooting it Cap & Ball. It did become an issue when I started firing full house 45 Colt Black Powder loads with 250 grain bullets. The reason is the grip shape. There is less room between the rear of the trigger guard and the grip than on a Colt or colt clone, so with the stiff recoil from a heavy Black Powder load I was getting my middle finger banged pretty good. The answer for me was to shoot 45 Schofield ammo with only about 28 grains of FFg and a 200 grain bullet. That calmed down recoil enough that I was not getting my finger whacked anymore. But with 30 grains of FFg under a .451 lead ball, recoil was not a problem.
This is a view of the Armi San Paolo marking on the underside of the barrel, underneath the loading lever. It is a DGG in a circle. The company founders were Grassi, Doninelli, and Gazzola, that is what DGG stands for.
One other thing. This is an R&D cylinder marketed by Taylors. Since it was an old gun, I sent the gun to them to have the cylinder fitted, a service that Taylors performs for free by the way. When I spoke to the gunsmith at Taylors he told me he had fitted a cylinder for a Pietta to the revolver, not an Uberti cylinder. There are slight dimensional differences and that is what he thought fit best.
Personally, I think the workmanship of my old EuroArms Remmie is better than the newer Uberti. I have no experience with a Pietta 1858 Remington, but a few years ago I cheaped out and bought a pair of Pietta 1860 army revolvers. I was disappointed in the workmanship and should have spent the extra money on a pair of Ubertis.
Just my 2 cents.