The Remington “Army” .44 percussion revolver was the primary competition to the Colt Model 1860 “Army” .44 percussion revolver during the American Civil War era. Although Sam Colt was the better salesman and marketer, Remington eventually beat Colt out of their military contracts by delivering a comparable revolver, which some felt was actually structurally superior, for less money. In 1864, after the US government had finally beat Colt’s price down to $14.00 per revolver from the $20 per gun they had been paying during the early days of the war, Remington agreed to furnish their “Army” revolvers for only $12.00 per gun. That ended the reign of the Colt Army as the first choice for the Ordnance Department procurement officers for the rest of the American Civil War.
In the field, even though the Colt revolver had the name and the mystique, many cavalry troopers preferred the much sturdier solid frame design of the Remington revolver. Approximately 106,000 Remington New Model Army percussion revolvers were purchased by US government during the American Civil War, with a total of approximately 114,000 of all types of Remington percussion revolvers purchased during the course of the war. Approximately 80,000 of these were purchased during the last two years of the war, between 1863 and 1865. According to the research published in Remington Army & Navy Revolvers 1861-1868 by Donald L. Ware, Remington revolvers through serial #149,000 were accepted prior to the end of the Civil War. Guns below serial #123,000 were accepted prior to the end of 1864.
The Remington New Model Army revolver offered here is in FINE condition overall. This gun is serial number 66984 and was almost certainly manufactured and delivered in mid-to-late 1863. The matching serial number 66984 is found on the grip frame (under the left grip), under the barrel (hidden by the loading lever) and in weak pencil inside both grips. Like many of the later production Remington New Model Army revolvers, this one has a cylinder with no serial number. It has been hypothesized that only those cylinders that needed work for them to time and index correctly were numbered, in an attempt to keep those cylinders with the guns they had been fit to. Since the New Model Army was intended to be a fully interchangeable parts gun, in theory any unnumbered cylinder should function correctly in any New Model Army revolver. The gun is profusely sub-inspected throughout with the letters L and W on the barrel, and several W marks on the frame, on the cylinder and on the bottoms of the grips. Another L is on the bottom of the brass triggerguard. The left grip retains an excellent and very clear script military inspector’s cartouche. The script initials are BH and stand for civilian armory sub-inspector Benjamin Hannis, who inspected a large number of Remington contract arms, including their revolvers and long arms like the “Zouave” rifle. The top strap is clearly and crisply marked in three lines:
PATENTED SEPT 14, 1858
E. REMINGTON & SONS ILION NEW YORK. U.S.A
NEW-MODEL
As noted, the gun remains in FINE overall condition and retains about 70%+ of its original blued finish overall. The majority of the finish loss appears to be from flaking. The barrel retains most of its blued finish, with some loss due primarily to high edge wear. The frame retains somewhat less of blue its blue, with flaked loss and some holster wear. The cylinder retains a similar amount of blue as the frame. It shows the greatest loss on the front and rear edges, as well as a prominent turn ring through the cylinder stop slots. The backstrap and front strap retains only some minor traces of thinned blue and have lost most of their finish due to wear and use. The exposed metal has a mostly lightly oxidized and freckled brown and gray patina. The hammer retains some dull traces of its color casehardened finish, and the trigger retains some strong traces of its vibrant fire blued finish as well. The triggerguard has a mellow golden patina. The areas of the barrel, frame, and cylinder where the finish has flaked and worn have developed a mostly smooth blue-gray patina, with some moderate amounts of freckled surface oxidation here and there. The metal is mostly smooth with some scattered minor oxidized surface roughness evenly distributed over most of the surfaces and some very lightly scattered minor pitting, primarily around the face and rear of the cylinder, the edges of the top strap and around the muzzle. All of that being the result of the erosive and corrosive effects of the percussion caps of the period. All markings in the metal remain clear and crisp. The revolver is mechanically excellent and operates crisply, timing, indexing, and locking up exactly as it should. The bore of the revolver is in VERY GOOD condition. It is partly bright with strong rifling and shows evenly distributed oxidation, some frosting and some evenly distributed light pitting. The grips are both lightly numbered in pencil to the revolver and remain extremely crisp and sharp with fine edges and a sharp cartouche. The grips do show some lightly scattered dings and mars from handling and use and both grips seem to have warped very slightly due to shrinkage, making the bottom rear edges pull away from the butt a couple of hair’s widths.
Overall, this is an extremely attractive, crisp, and sharp revolver that displays wonderfully. It has an honest look of having seen some use but was clearly never abused and remains mechanically tight and crisp. This is a high-quality pistol that it would be at home in any Civil War pistol collection that needs no excuses, is a 100% complete and correct Remington New Model Army with a low enough serial number to have actually seen service and likely fought during the last year and a half to two years of the war. This is a very nice Remington Model 1863 New Model Army that will display well in any Civil War collection and that is priced a few hundred dollars less than most guns in this condition are priced these days.