Remington Model 1890
Duke finally completes his Old West collection
In my gun’riting career I’ve tried to experience all of the Old West sixguns and their most noteworthy cartridges. Besides the omnipresent Colt Peacemaker, there were quite a few other holster-size revolvers on the market back in the late 1800s. Colt also marketed a Model 1878 DA, a smaller Model 1877 DA and several versions of Conversions, i.e. cap-and-ball designs converted to fire metallic cartridges. Smith & Wesson had at least four different types of No. 3 .44 top breaks plus the famous .45 Schofield.
Lesser known were Merwin & Hulberts with their twist frame .44s such as the Pocket Army. The Remington Model 1875 was very distinctive with its large web between frame and barrel. I’ve owned shooting samples of all mentioned in this paragraph.
Missing From The Collection
The one Old West sixgun I’ve never owned is Remington’s Model 1890. Many sources I’ve consulted say the Model 1890s were only made in .44-40s with 5 3/4″ barrels and to the tune of a couple thousand built. As many gun shows as I’ve attended, even some of the big antique ones in Las Vegas, the Remington Model 1890s I’ve seen could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s Uberti made some Model 1890 replicas. I had one but for reasons now unremembered I didn’t like it. It got traded or sold somewhere along the way.
More recently, however, I’ve seen some copies of old Remington advertisements dated the 1890-1892 time frame. They definitely show Model 1890s offered with 7 1/2″ barrel lengths. Get this ─— customers had to pay 20 cents more for the longer barrel. Why I was pleased to see this information will be discussed shortly.
Duke found these very rare Hartford Armory reproductions of Remington 19th
century revolvers on the Internet and nabbed both. Top is the Model 1875 .44-40,
bottom is the Model 1890 .45 Colt.
A twist
Furthermore, a very helpful reader informed me of a Remington revolver I’d never heard about. It was the Model 1888 also termed in Remington ads as their New Model Pocket Army Revolver. This version came about after Remington discontinued production of the Model 1875 in 1887. According to an article by Don Ware in the Remington Society of America Journal titled “Variations in Remington Model 1875, Model 1888, and Model 1890 Revolvers,” someone found a stash of Model 1875s at the Remington Factory in Ilion, NY. Instead of offering them to the public as is, they were remodeled to have the large web cut mostly away and barrels shortened to 5 3/4″. Chambering could have been .44-40 and perhaps .45 Gov’t (.45 S&W). These were the Model 1888 and by what I see in Mr. Ware’s article, it would take someone very familiar with these rare sixguns to discern between ’88s and ’90s.
Now why would I care Remington Model 1890s were offered with 7 1/2″ barrels? To answer this we must go back almost to the turn of our current century. A fellow called saying he had founded a company named Hartford Armory. Its purpose was to reproduce Model 1875 and 1890 Remington revolvers. He asked to visit and I was more than happy to host him. We fired his prototypes and I thought they were fine and asked to get a sample from standard production when they became available. Never happened — I never heard another word from the fellow. However, I did hear a small quantity of repro-Remington sixguns had been made. Then, either the company folded or just gave up revolver manufacture. I never saw one.
Then in 2019, I heard about two Hartford Armory revolvers for sale. One was a .44-40 Model 1875 and the other a .45 Colt Model 1890. Naturally I bought both. When they were delivered and boxes opened I saw both had 7 1/2″ barrels. It was a disappointment in regards to the Model 1890 until reading Mr. Ware’s article. I’m still a little off about the Model 1890 being a .45 but I will bravely live with it. Both of those sixguns were built to excellent quality standards.
So now I can say I’ve experienced Remington’s Model 1890. Well, sort of. It’s wintertime in Montana as I write this so a shooting report is going to have to wait.
Editor’s Note: To learn more about the above revolvers, check out Duke’s Shooting Sixguns of the Old West on amazon.com.
