RE: 1858 New Army Police .36 Caliber Revolver

[DavidB2]

A couple of questions abou the 1858 New Army Police .36 Caliber Revolver from Cabelas. At $199.00 it seems like the best deal for the Remington .36 caliber revolver.

However, I noted that MidwayUSA has a Pietta 1858 Remington .36 Navy revolver for $48 more; but it has a longer barrell of 7 3/8. The Cabelas Pietta that I am looking at is a 6.5 inch barrell. Does anyone know if there is much difference in accurancy with these 2 different revolvers? I am just wondering if the Midway Pietta with a longer barrell is worth an extra 48 bucks?

Also, if anyone has the Pietta 1858 Remington .36 caliber revolver what load goes best in this gun? I have decided on the .375 diameter because it is the only swagged lead ball that is available. Any suggestions from your experience with this pistol?

 

[timothy75]

Accuracy probably wont be affected by barrel length but I believe the originals were 6.5''. You'll have to experiment a little to find the load you like but if will probably be between 15-25grs vol. Good luck

 

[mykeal]

I have a Pietta .36 cal 1858 New Navy. The most accurate load I've found is 18 gr by volume of fffg real black powder. Your gun may, and probably will vary from that. It's unlikely to be more than 22 gr, however.

I have used both .380 and .375 rb's; the .375's worked well, so if that's all you can get it should be fine.

The longer barrel is inherently more accurate, mostly because of the longer sight distance between the front and rear sights. Whether your skills are good enough to take advantage of that is something only you can determine.

 

[Donny]

The remington can hold more powder than the colt. I've shot mine with 27 grains with good accuracy and velocities in excess of 1000 fps using Pyrodex P. I had room to spare and could have loaded 28 grains with the ball. This puts it in the same class with the .32 mag or 9mm Makarov ballistically.

Don

 

[DixieTexian]

The longer barrel may have more inherent accuracy, but the shorter one will probably handle better, which means you may shoot it better.

 

[Misfire99]

I think there needs to be a better definition of what accurate means. A pistol that hits in the same spot all the time is an accurate pistol. But it might not hit where the sights are pointing. This would make it and accurate pistol that is not sighted correctly. So using this type of definition the longer sight radius has no effect on the accuracy of the pistol only on it's ability to be sighted by the shooter.

This is similar to someone that thinks because a pistol has adjustable sights it will be more accurate. This is just plain mistaken. For example if you lock a pistol in a rest and the group size fire by that rested pistol is six feet at ten yards it doesn't matter what kind of sight it has it will never be an accurate pistol. And on the other had if you rest a pistol and fire one hole groups at fifty yards this is a very accurate pistol no matter what kind of sights it has.

 

[tightgroups]

Well said.

 

[Omnivore]

The longer barrel gets you a bit more velocity, all else being equal. It just depends what you like. It's a trade-off, but the idea of the original gun was to favor concealability and portability over power, same as with any modern hideout gun.

For my purposes, I'd not be carrying a C&B revolver for protection, so I'd handle the two guns, and see what felt better. Either one would be cool.