Howdy
I normally hang out on the Frontier Iron section of this forum, or the Henry section.
But here is a post about the 1875 Remington.
Yes, just like everybody else I have a couple of 1858 Remingtons with cartridge conversion cylinders.
But I always wanted an 1875 Remington.
Like Robert Duval said in Open Range, "Always liked me a sidearm with some heft".
Unfortunately, because they will not pass a drop test, I have not been able to buy one of the replica 1875 Remingtons here in MASS. Don't ask.
A few months ago I won this original Model 1875 at an auction. This model was made from 1875 until 1889. I don't know exactly when this one was made, but the serial number is just two digits, so it must have been pretty early. This one is chambered for 44-40. The nickel plating is terrific, and I think it is original.
The only place the plating is flaking is on the cylinder.
When I got it home I started comparing it to some other 1875 Remingtons. It turns out the hammer is not correct.
The firing pin on these was integral with the hammer, like the firing pin on the hammer of this Model 1890. Notice how the firing pin 'droops down'.
It turns out somebody substituted a Colt hammer at some point. I think it is a Colt hammer, I don't think it is an Uberti, but I could be wrong.
Unlike a Colt, the hand pivots on a screw mounted on the hammer. Somebody had fashioned such a screw, but it was a butcher job. So I had a friend make a new screw for me.
Notice there is no plating on the hammer around the firing pin. I don't know what the story is with that. Notice too there is wear on the bottom of the firing pin. That is probably because the hole in the frame for the firing pin is not in quite the same location as on a Colt.
One of the things I wanted to do with this old girl was to put in a lighter hammer spring. The original hammer spring was quite stiff, but the main problem was it was a bear to get in and out of the grip frame. I did not want to grind down the original spring, so I scrounged around in my parts box and found a spring, probably from a 1858 replica, that fit in and was not so stiff. I had a few of these springs, but one of them fit better than the others.
So I cleaned all the old oil and grease out, lubed everything up with Ballistol and put the 1875 back together again with the new spring. Everything works and she locks up fine, although there is a bit more cylinder rotation when locked in battery than I would like. But not too bad.
One of the things I have read about these is the cylinder throats in the 44-40 guns were way oversized. Mike Venturino mentioned this in his book Shooting Sixguns of the Old West. Mike states that when he fired a couple of these, the bullets were tumbling and not going through the targets point first. Mike has a theory for why the chamber throats were oversized, but let's not go into that here.
Anyway, I measured my chamber throats, and sure enough they are around .448 in diameter, far too large for a 44-40 bullet. I use a .428 diameter Mav-Dutchman Big Lube bullet in all my Black Powder 44-40 loads, and I was very concerned about whether these bullets would tumble when fired from my Remington. I slugged the bore with one of my .428 bullets, but because the rifling is five grooves I was not able to get an accurate reading of the groove diameter. But the rifling did put some nice deep marks on the slug.
So I took it too the Range and put about 30 or so rounds through it.
If you can read what I wrote on the targets, they were only out about 15 feet. Not too much different than CAS targets. Yes, the groups are terrible. The group on the left was actually shot from a rest. But the old girl managed to put all the rounds on the paper, and all the bullets went through the targets pointy end first.
The other thing I was concerned about was whether she would bind up after just a few shots. The bushing on front of the cylinder is quite short, only standing about .055 high. I don't remember off hand how tall a Colt bushing is, but it is taller than that. Also, a Colt cylinder pin is about .250 in diameter, the Remington pin is only about .195 in diameter. All these things would contribute to the Remington probably binding up quicker from Black Powder fouling blasted out of the barrel/cylinder gap than a Colt.
Well, to make a long story short, I took the Remington to a CAS Match on Sunday. It was a six stage match and I fired 30 rounds through her. All the bullets hit the targets, and she did not bind up on me. I did squirt a little bit of Ballistol on the cylinder pin towards the end, but that was all I did to keep her rolling.
Yes, with that web under the barrel, it is heavy. Heavier than one of my 7 1/2" Colts. No, I did not weigh them, but I could feel the difference. However the extra weight was helpful, recoil was very light with my BP 44-40 loads with a 200 grain bullet. Considerably lighter than 45 Colt recoil with 250 grain bullets. The trigger is very light, so I had to be sure I was on target. But she did hit every target.
No, I am not going to bring this nice old shooter to every match, but it sure was fun to bring it to one.