I have two 1860's, one 1851 Navy, and one Remington-Beals. I like them all, but overall I lean towards the 1860.
First, in defense of the Remington-Beals, the triggerguard issue is in reality a non-issue. Yes, if you grasp the revolver with your second finger pushed all the way up into the curve where the grip and triggerguard meet, then yes, you would think your knuckle is going to take a beating. But in an actual firing grip your hand tends to slide down a little farther towards the heel of the grip to the point that the little finger curls under the grip frame. (It needs to be there anyway so as to control the upwards rotation of the revolver to allow your thumb to reach the hammer spur for cocking.) Your knuckle then clears the triggerguard, and I've never been rapped.
However the Remington-Beals design does foul quicker than do the Colts.
The ability to quickly swap cylinders being an advantage of the Remington-Beals is largely a modern urban legend, as there is no evidence that this was actually ever done. (I've extensively studied period gunleather, and if extra cylinders were routinely carried there would be original pouches for them, but where I find all sorts of cap boxes and pouches for paper cartridges abound, I have never run across a cylinder pouch.)
The big advantage of the Colt design is, to me, the ease of maintenance. The big hefty cylinder arbor of the Colt hold up over more shots without fouling, but more importantly the removable barrel makes the Colt much faster and simpler to clean. I clean exclusively with water, and find that the only two parts of the revolver that need to be "dunked" are the cylinder and the barrel. The frame normally gets by with only a wipe down with a wet cloth, then a wipe with a dry cloth and an application of Ballistol. However, to thoroughly clean a Remington-Beals requires removing the grips and all of the lockwork, then dunking the entire frame/barrel in the water. It's simply more labor-intensive over the requirements of the Colt.
Strength and accuracy are pretty much even between the two designs.
It is true that the Remington-Beals is pretty much ready to shoot right out of the box, as the design seems to adapt to modern manufacturing methods better than does the Colt. On every Colt clone I have I find that I must refit the cylinder bolt and adjust the timing, as well as fit the barrel wedge, but once that's done they are excellent revolvers, and the work only requires time and a few files.
