Don Dixon
Sergeant
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2008
- Location
- Fairfax, VA, USA
Just to add something to this, I agree that this was most likely very rare at least early on. I will say that if you have experience actually firing and using these revolvers you will know that changing cylinders is pretty easy to do with a Remington, but not so easily done with a colt. I will say having spare cylinders is something that makes shooting cap and ball more enjoyable for me.
Even with the Remington, doing this on horseback would be very difficult and I always wondered about the caps falling off while carrying them. The best solution would be multiple revolvers as we see in photographic evidence. I also have never seen any evidence of cylinders being issued separately, not to discount that cylinders could be salvaged from other discarded revolvers.
I would say that a Remington is really the only practical revolver where the cylinder can be changed out on the run. This could have been something that occurred more frequently late war or post war before cartridge revolvers.
As I stated in my post above, occasional individuals may have purchased spare cylinders and had them fitted. That it was possible is illustrated by the photograph of the expensive, cased, engraved set of Remington revolvers in Phil Spangenber's article. But, the OP's question was about spare cylinders being purchased and issued to troopers by the Army during the Civil War. That didn't happen. Period. Exclamation point! If it did happen it would be documented in Executive Document 99 as the contractor's charged the Army for the spare fitted cylinders with lots of guns. One would also see it in the specifications of the Ordnance Office's contracts with the vendors.
Beyond that, it is one thing to play with a spare cylinder on the bench on a firing range. That is easily done with a fitted cylinder. It is another thing to load up and cap a spare cylinder and carry it for days bouncing around on horseback in some sort of pouch with the percussion caps partially exposed. Has anyone ever seen an Army contract for a cylinder pouch, or an example of a pouch provided under an Army contract? Carrying a loaded, capped, spare cylinder is like carrying a hand grenade with the pin pulled, and is egregiously stupid. If you safed the cylinder by not capping it, the powder would leak out through the nipples as you bounced along on horseback and you would still have to cap it to use it. That would be faster than loading powder and ball and capping, but it is not a quick reload.
Regards,
Don Dixon