Range Report 04May2024: Comparing Colt and Remington New Model Army Revolvers

 

Today's shooting conditions.

Today’s range session was supposed to be dedicated to doing some ballistic testing of a handful of recreated Sharps Federal cartridges, but as the first picture on this article shows, we were entirely socked in with rain and fog.  As a result, I could barely even see the 25-yard range, let alone the 100-yard one, so instead I decided to do a head-to-head comparison of my Pietta New Model Army and my Uberti Colt New Model Army (often called an “1860”).  Short version:  The Remington is a far better weapon.  Long version:  There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s get started.

As I said, today was cold (for May), rainy, and foggy, and I believe this had a significant effect on shooting.  Conditions:  49 degrees, humidity 88%, barometric pressure 29.84 inHg., wind 4 mph from 5:30.

Both of my revolvers were very significantly modified by Gary Barnes (cartridgeconversion.com).  Both had their loading ports expanded to make loading paper cartridges easier, both had their rammers reshaped for conical balls, both had their forcing cones adjusted to 11 degrees, both had the chambers reamed to make them consistent, both had their nipples replaced with Slix-Shot nipples, and both had action and trigger jobs, among other minor changes.  The Uberti was also modified to correct the typical Uberti “short arbor” problem.

The cartridges for the day were all identical:  25 grains of Schuetzen 3F powder in a nitrated filter paper shell with a Kerr bullet made from an Eras Gone mold.

I began by firing 12 rounds from each revolver over the chronograph, with startling results.  I had previously tested my Remington and got an average 850.7 fps muzzle velocity with Kerr bullets, which was a close match to a test by Balázs Németh of CapandBall who got an average of 856 fps with a J&D bullet from an original Remington NMA.  In that test I had used Swiss 3F powder, while in today’s test I used Schuetzen 3F powder.

Remington 12-round average:  503.0 fps.
Colt 12-round average: 473.2 fps.

Obviously, my result today with the Remington was 350 fps slower than the old one, which is shocking.  I attribute this to two factors:  First, Swiss is significantly better than Schuetzen.  I have always known this, but this really accentuates it.  Perhaps as, or even more, important, however, was the moisture.  Some of the cartridges I used today have been on my shelf for several months, and we had an exceptionally wet winter this year with significant flooding.  In addition, it was very wet today, as I noted above, and we know that moisture reduces muzzle velocity.  Thus, I think these two factors explain the massive reduction in speed I got today; needless to say, I can’t do anything about moisture, but I won’t be buying anything except Swiss powder from now on, despite its higher cost.

All of the results below are expressed in terms of the String Test.  This test gauges both accuracy and grouping in a single number, and is the way all historical shooters should be judging their efforts.  To learn more, go here: https://historicalshooting.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-string-test-measure-for-historical.html

The first two tables of fire were fired from a rest using a full sight and a 6:00 hold with both revolvers.  All shots were at 15 yards.

Table One.

Table One:  Remington
Rounds: 12
String measure: 14.5 in.
String Test: 1.21 in./rd.
Note the single flyer:  My hands shake, and I had a shake at exactly the wrong moment.  Without this anomaly, the String test would have been below 1 in./rd., a truly amazing score.

Table Two.

Table Two: Colt
Rounds: 12
String measure: 25.0 in.
String Test: 2.0 in./rd. 

Tables Three through Eight were fired offhand, aiming off to adjust fire.

Table Three.

Table Three: Remington
Rounds: 6
String measure: 13.0
String Test: 2.2 in./rd. 

Table Four.

Table Four: Colt
Rounds: 5 (one misfire)
String measure: 12.5 in.
String Test: 2.5 in./rd. 

Table Five.

Table Five: Remington
Rounds: 6
String measure: 12.25 in.
String Test: 2.0 in./rd. 

Table Six.

Table Six: Colt
Rounds: 6
String measure: 19.75 in.
String Test: 3.3 in./rd. 

Table Seven.

Table Seven: Remington
Rounds: 6
String measure: 8.75 in.
String Test: 1.5 in./rd.

Table Eight.

Table Eight: Colt
Rounds: 6
String measure: 19.25 in.
String Test: 3.2 in./rd. 

Conclusion
The Remington had a Muzzle Velocity that was 50 fps faster than the Colt despite using exactly the same ammunition.  I cannot be sure why this is, but I suspect it relates to different bore sizes between the two models; it would be interesting to see how a Pietta Colt compared with the Uberti.

As the String Test results demonstrate conclusively, the Remington was significantly more accurate, both from the rest and offhand.  In fact, if all shots are averaged together in two groups, one for the Remington and one for the Colt, the Remington had an overall String Test of 1.62 in./rd., while the Colt’s was a far worse 2.64 in./rd. (still a respectable score, of course).  Having said that, it is clear from the results of the shots fired from rest that the work Mr. Barnes did on these revolvers was superb—it was actually very hard to get precise string measurements because so many of the hits touched or overlapped.

It wasn’t so much that the Colt’s groups were all that bad (although the Remington’s were better), but the Mean Points of Impact (the statistical center of each group) were farther from the Intended Mean Point of Impact (the bullseye).  This was true even when I aimed off to allow for the fact that Colts shoot higher. It is important to remember that when you do not have rings or marks on your target, aiming off is a matter of pure estimation, as it would be in combat.  This should silence forever those who mistakenly believe that group size is the only factor worth noting when gauging accuracy since it shows that even when the groups are similar, where that group lands is important, too.  It’s not enough to just say “I can just aim off,” because aiming off when there are no marks on the target is hard to do consistently, and inconsistent aiming off leads to bigger groups.

In addition to the purely numerical results above, other differences between these revolvers were very apparent during shooting.  First, Remingtons are just easier to load than Colts, even when both have the loading ports ground out to match original revolvers, because there’s simply more room.   Second, although I had no cap jams (Slix Shot nipples work marvelously), I did have some cap pieces catch in the works, and with the Remington these were child’s play to remove, whereas with the Colt a hammer had to be used to disassemble the entire revolver to get the cylinder out to remove them.  Third, Uberti springs are garbage; I had something like ten or twelve caps fail to go off on the first try with the Colt today, necessitating spinning the cylinder to try them again, and zero failures with the Remington.

The bottom line is that the Remington is just a better design than the Colt, and Ubertis, even when heavily reworked to eliminate most of the flaws from the factory, are still inferior to Piettas in function.