Some Observations Comparing the use of Colt and Remington Cap and Ball Revolvers During the Civil War

The Author's 1860 Colt Army and Remington New Model Army Revolvers.  Both are by Pietta.

There is a great deal of debate on various Internet forums concerning the relative merits of Colt cap and ball revolvers when compared with those by Remington.  Some of it is scholarly and rational, while some seem to be typical mall-ninja “tacti-cool” nonsense.  Little of what I have read, however, focuses on the strict combat utility of the two weapon types, and it is this viewpoint I wish to address.

 For this discussion, we will compare the 1860 Colt Army and the Remington New Model Army since these two revolvers were extremely common during the War and are functionally identical in most respects.  They are loaded in exactly the same way, both are .44 caliber, both can use exactly the same bullet and cartridge loads, and both were deployed and fired in the same way.  Both weapons were considered excellent in their day and were prized by soldiers in the field for power, accuracy, reliability, and ease of use.

There were, however, significant differences between the revolvers.  Some of these differences, such as the thinner trigger of the Colt which was offset to the left in the trigger guard, seem to have little impact on their use, however, there were other differences which had more of a tactical effect.  These significant differences include the sights; the open frame of the Colts versus the closed frame of the Remingtons; the different hammer faces of each and the effect these have on percussion caps; the thick arbor which holds the cylinder on Colt’s revolvers (#15 in Fig. 1) compared to the thinner cylinder pin which holds the cylinder on Remingtons (#6 in Fig. 2); and the different methods for disassembling these revolvers.

Nota Bene:  I have never fired any extant original revolvers of either type, so this analysis is based upon handling modern reproductions.  I believe, based on what others have written and on looking at pictures of extant pieces, that these considerations all hold true for the originals as well, but I am open to correction if that is not the case.

The Sights

Colt revolvers came with a number of different front sight posts during the War, however, the 1860 Army had a small brass blade.  The rear sight was a notch cut into the top of the hammer.  The Remingtons had a tall blade-style front sight, and the rear sight was on the back of the frame rather than on the hammer.

Placing the rear sight on the hammer should mean that it will not always have exactly the same sight-frame reference since the hammer can be in a slightly different place every time it is cocked.  While I have seen people mention this, in practical terms this seems to have little real effect on tactical accuracy (as opposed to target shooting accuracy).

A bigger factor is the fact that the smaller front sight post on Colts causes two problems:  First, it makes it more difficult to get a good sight picture quickly in a combat situation.  Second, Colts are notorious for shooting extremely high.  My experience is that it takes longer to get a good initial sight picture with Colts and to reacquire the sight picture after recoil for subsequent shots, and that while I can hit point of aim with a Remington, I have to aim six inches low or more with Colts at normal ranges, and judging the correct hold difference adds to the length of time it takes to make the shot.  While neither of those factors have much effect on target shooting, they are significant in combat shooting when speed is of the essence.

Balanced against this is the question of how important the sights were in actual combat.  In Instructions in Rifle and Carbine Firing for the United States Army by CPT Stanhope Blunt from 1885, the author says that:

832. Owing to the unsteady support that the hand gives to the weapon the methods of aiming previously prescribed for the rifle and carbine cannot be advantageously followed; this is especially true of the practice mounted, where the motion of the horse and the very limited time available for the delivery of the fire permit neither the steadiness nor deliberation so requisite for success with the other arms.

833. The best results will then be obtained by following the method of snap shooting; for which the pistol should be held raised and then quickly projected at the mark and fired without pause or any effort to align it upon the object, the action being somewhat similar to that employed in throwing a missile from the hand and from the same raised position of the arm. (p. 309.)

Previous sources (e.g., Cooke’s Cavalry Tactics from 1862) do not mention this snap shooting process, but the instructions do not deny it was used, either.  If snap shooting was widely practiced, then these differences in the sights may be of little tactical relevance.

Frame Strength

Every time I see a comparison of these two weapons the stronger frame of the Remington is always mentioned, usually followed by an admission that the person making the point has not seen any real-world deleterious effects caused by the difference.  My experience mirrors that.  I suspect that although the Remington frame is inherently stronger, the thickness of the Colt arbor compensates sufficiently for this difference that the real effect is insignificant, at least with normal loads.

Cap Jams

When firing a percussion revolver, the hammer is driven backward slightly in reaction to the discharge; when this happens, the cap can fall into the mechanism of the revolver, causing it to jam (for a video demonstrating this issue, see: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCtsdDuv0gs>).

Colt revolvers have a small notch cut into the face of the hammer which is designed to sit on the pins between cylinders so that the weapon can be carried safely.  This notch can grab the cap when it is knocked back and/or when the hammer is pulled back for another shot.  This problem is called “cap sucking,” and while it can be mitigated somewhat by replacing the nipples with better ones, the problem is endemic with Colt revolvers.  Some people also fill the notch in the hammer to reduce the problem, but it can still happen regardless.  It can occasionally happen with Remington revolvers too, but the different design of their hammers, which are flat on the face, makes it much less common.

It is sometimes possible to shake the cap out or to get at it with a small pick of some sort, but the worst cases require the cylinder to be removed in order to clear the malfunction, and it is this situation which marks the biggest differences between Colts and Remingtons.

Colts are open-top designs.  Because of this, the cylinder is held by a heavy arbor, and the barrel assembly is attached to the arbor with a wedge, which must first be removed in order to remove the cylinder.  While I have spoken to people who claim to be able to remove the wedge with their fingers, in the majority of cases the wedge can only be removed by using a non-ferrous hammer to knock it out.  To date, I have not seen a hammer attached to any weapon belt from the Civil War, although a loose rock may perform the same function in extremis. 

Because of the way Remingtons are constructed, the cylinder is much easier to remove.  You lower the loading lever part way and pull the cylinder pin forward, allowing you to simply push the cylinder out of the frame.  This is fast, extremely easy to do, and requires no tools of any kind.  Popular movies have led people to think that Civil War soldiers used spare cylinders to reload their revolvers, so they see the Remington design as superior because changing cylinders is so easy to do.  In reality, this is a modern idea.  Civil War revolvers were not issued with multiple cylinders, and I know of no evidence for the practice; instead, they just carried multiple revolvers instead of reloading.  However, the cap jam problem points to a different reason for the superiority of the Remington design:  Not only are they inherently less prone to cap jamming, but when it does occur, the fact that the cylinder can be removed so much faster and more easily is a marked advantage when it comes to clearing.  A soldier might not take the time to do so in a swirling melee, but in many situations he could easily do so.

I should add that I have been unable to determine how common the cap jam problem was in the Nineteenth Century.  I have read some say that the cones in original revolvers were superior, which reduced the Colt cap jams, and that may be so.  I will say that when I replaced the Pietta nipples on my Colt with  modern Slix-Shot nipples (<https://www.slixprings.com/index.php>) my cam jams were reduced significantly.  Before the change I came to expect at least one cap jam in every cylinder of fire, and sometimes more, and after the change I once shot fifty rounds consecutively without a single cap jam.

Cylinder Lock

The narrow cylinder pin on Remington revolvers is extremely susceptible to black powder fouling.  After as few as three or four full cylinders have been fired it can cause the cylinder to lock up, making it extremely difficult for it to rotate until it has been removed and cleaned.  The heavy arbor in Colt revolvers is grooved to accept grease, and this prevents this from being a problem.  It is possible to shoot many full cylinders out of a Colt without having this problem occur at all, and many people point to this as evidence of the superiority of Colt revolvers.

Considered tactically, however, this superiority of Colts is illusory.  The process of reloading a cap and ball revolver is so tedious that soldiers were unlikely to do so in the midst of combat unless they had an opportunity to get out from under fire for long enough to make it practical; in actuality, many soldiers carried multiple revolvers for exactly this reason.  If they had enough time to reload, they would also have time in which to wipe down the cylinder pin to prevent cylinder lock, especially given the ease with which the Remington’s cylinder can be removed.  Thus, while this difference can be important to a target shooter, it is not so for a soldier in combat because he would be unlikely to fire enough rounds through his Remington in order for the problem to arise before having time to wipe the cylinder pin clean.

Conclusion

Both the 1860 Army and the New Model Army are superb revolvers, and both were widely issued and prized by the men who used them.  Many of the differences between them are insignificant from a tactical viewpoint, and, to a large extent, preference for one over the other really comes down to personal viewpoint.  Despite that, however, I think it really is possible to say that the Remington is objectively and significantly superior from a tactical viewpoint.  Even if we allow, arguendo, that the poorer sights on the Colt can be ignored because good training and experience (especially if snap shooting was practiced) can minimize the problem, the problem with cylinder removal to reduce a stoppage remains and seems significant.  A soldier with a Remington can duck behind cover and remove his cylinder quickly and easily so as to make his weapon functional again, whereas the process is much more difficult for a solider armed with a Colt, and usually requires him to have easy access to a hammer.

Update:  Historical Cap Jams
For a comparison of an actual extant Remington NMA and a Colt Army, see this excellent video by Balázs Németh of Capandball.com:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AThglFR5N4.  Note that the Colt experiences several cap jams during his test, however, it's possible that the cones were replaced with new ones since the extant cones are often unusable in extant revolvers.  I don't know if Mr. Németh did so in this case, but it should be considered if we're trying to understand how common cap jams were in period.

This video discusses cap jams in the historical record:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASbDnicII9o.