Howdy
This photo shows an original model 1875 Remington at the top and a Model 1890 Remington at the bottom. The 1875 is nickel plated, the 1890, believe it or not, is silver plated.
Here is the 1875 almost completely disassembled.
Here are the parts to the lockwork. Yes the hammer has three cocking notches; 'safety cock', half cock or loading position, and full cock. Notice that rather than the hand riding in a hole in the hammer, it rides on a small screw threaded into the hammer. Notice too there is only one point on the hand, rather than the hand of a Colt which has two 'points'. The shapes of the trigger and bolt are quite different with the Remington than a Colt too. The screw in the hammer makes take down of the hammer slightly different than a Colt. The hammer must be lowered through the frame in order to unscrew the little screw before the hammer can be lifted out of the frame from the top.
Operationally, the Colt and the Remington were very similar. Set the hammer to half cock to free the cylinder to rotate. Load one, skip one, load four more. Bring the hammer to full cock and lower it on an empty chamber. I NEVER trust the so called 'safety cock' notch on any Colt or other single action revolver. Look at how thin the sear is. It would not take much of a blow to the hammer to shear off the sear and allow the hammer to fall all the way, firing a round under the hammer. Did I emphasize NEVER enough?
The design of the cylinder pin on the originals was different than on the modern reproductions. The reproductions use a spring loaded transverse catch much like a Colt to retain the cylinder pin. With the originals, the cylinder pin was very long. It extended all the way to the muzzle. There was a spring loaded catch on the underside of the front of the pin. When pressed up it allowed the cylinder pin to be pulled forward so the cylinder could be removed. The arrangement was the same with the 1890 model.
The shape of the web under the barrel of the 1875 model was meant to imitate the shape of the loading lever of the 1858 Percussion model. Despite what Robert Duvall said in Open Range, it did not add any strength to the barrel. Simply held in place with a slip fit pin to the frame and one screw under the barrel.
Considerably more space between the rear of the trigger guard and the grip on the Remington than on a Colt.
The 1858 Remington Cap & Ball revolvers had no bushing on the front of the cylinder to prevent BP fouling blasted out of the barrel/cylinder gap from fouling the cylinder pin. This made them very prone to binding when fired with Black Powder. Remington followed the example of Colt with the 1875 cylinder, seen in the center of this photo, with a bushing integral with the cylinder. However, the removable bushing on the Colt cylinder on the right was more prominent than the Remington bushing and functioned better at preventing the cylinder pin from binding with BP fouling blasted out of the b/c gap.
There were just a few Remington 1875 revolvers chambered for 45 Colt, mostly for the Army trials. Most were chambered for a 44 caliber Remington round that used a heeled bullet, or 44-40. The 44-40 Remingtons have a reputation for being very inaccurate. The chamber throats were bored too large for the 44-40 round. The chamber throats on this one measure about .448, which is much too large for my .428 diameter 44-40 bullets. I was happy all the bullets hit the targets in this photo and none of them key holed.