Lyman Remington 1858 New Model Army

I got this Lyman marketed Italian reproduction of the Remington 1858 New Army revolver, caliber .44, in 1974 in a gun store in downtown San Angelo, Texas. At the time I was stationed at Goodfellow Air Force Base attending a school and my buddy, Perry Fuller, showed me around. (By the way, Perry is a great fellow and has his own web site, The Churchwarden) Anyway, Perry took me to all the gun shops in town and at one they showed me this revolver. With money burning a hole in my pocket, I bought the gun and Perry and I went shooting. He let me clean the gun in his house and his wife, Amy, cooked a quail we shot using a Ithaca lever-action single shot 20 ga that Perry owned. Good times. I'm glad Perry and Amy are still together after all these years. But I digress...

These guns were made by Armi San Paulo or Uberti. Meant to be replicas or reproductions (a semantics subject for another time) of the Remington Army revolvers they are supposedly noticeably smaller than the originals. There is enough difference that Uberti went to great effort to make an original sized gun and to promote the difference. Still, I've never had a lick of trouble with the gun that wasn't my fault.

My favorite load with this gun is a Hornady .451" swaged round ball over 30 gr. ov Pyrodex P lit by a Remington #11 cap. this load is about as powerful as you can reasonably expect from this revolver and is accurate enough that I've repeatedly hit a military "E" type silhouette at 100 yards averaging a little better than 5 of 6 at that range.

The holster used for this gun is from Bianchi (back when John ran the business) and originally had a concho on the outside. I've removed that as I'm not one for shiny things. This holster has served me well for years. As you can see in this photo (click for a larger version), this gun could be a valuable and excellent part of my muzzleloading kit.

For a while, this was my home defense gun and was carefully loaded with wax melted around the nipples for over 2 years. When I finally fired it, every chamber fired perfectly. I think that a properly loaded cap and ball revolver can be a formidable defense tool, at least for the first 5 rounds. Why 5? Because the hammer must be carried on a bare nipple to an empty chamber. Safety first, the old fashioned way!

I wanted to use this revolver more but you can't carry it during muzzleloading season. Funny, huh? Oh, as a CHP holder I can carry my CHP gun, concealed, but not this (which I can't conceal). As though I'm going to smack a deer with it.