Dear sweet lordy lord. How do you ever find these things! (P.S. Read the top... sorry)

Little Known Fact: Blue was hard to make for the Confederate side for they had no textile factories to make and process Blue. Gray as easier to make with all the cotton, but it was still harder to produce in Mass quantities. As a result most Confederate soldiers wore Brown, because the die was made of Butterbeans, a very brown legume. Thus the Name BrownCoat was coined, also BrownBack, but that was more of a Derrogitive Term.
Also Note, Mal's Pistol has an Octogonal Barrel. Although it was never put into production for the army, it was used to test a new Octogonal bullet to replace musket balls. Cone shaped Bullets replaced the hard to make octogonal bullets. Gee History Class is fun!

Never heard of octogonal bullets before... A buddy of mine who's a big gun guy told me the octogonal barrel was designed specifically so the barrel could be placed in a vise and held perfectly aligned without slipping so the center bore process could be accomplished without worrying about bending the barrel during the bore. The centr bore was round to fit the round leads balls. Also the chambers were round to hold the balls snugly -- being oversized so they would push down and fit tightly in the chamber but cuz the lead was malleable it would smoosh down into the chamber. I'm thinking if they did come out with octogonal bullets, the chamber end would still need to be round or else they'd need to make octogonal chambers to fit the bullets. Also the octogonal barrel was much easier to "true up" when it became warped due to usage.

Hmmm... I'll talk to my History Teacher. I bet your friend knows alot more about guns than he does. Sorry for putting out false info.

Not to fret... When I first saw a pic of Mal's gun barrel looking straiught on, I assumed the inner shaft was octogonal as well as the outside. Looks like it to me still. But every 1858 Remington I've seen close-up has a round center bore. Would think making octogonal bullets would be fairly easy but highly impractical for soldiers trying to load the damn things in straight in the chambers.
If you look closely at Mal's gun from the side you can see where the original 1858 Remington is and where the prop guys "stuck" stuff on to the sides, bottom, etc. Also the rear sights appear to be add-ons as the original only uses a groove down the center frame that aligns with the front barrel sight. Also noticed that when Mal fires his gun in succession he never pulls back the hammer -- watch the BDM scene of the Reaver chase when Jayne's leg gets speared. Mal cranks off three, four shots as though the gun were an automatic with a clip feed action. All original / replica Cap & Ball revolvers require you to manually pull back the hammer before the trigger will fire the gun. Safety feature of a sorts.

--MAG

i was thinking that the octagonal bit was a strictly asthetic part of the gun, and that it was probably still cylindrical inside the barrel.