I hear 1860 tend to print high.

[enyaw]

How's things down on the Levi Big Ugly Tall Texan?
Being Big may be the reason your gun shoots less high. Weight holding it down. Maybe a firm hold on it.
My guns shoot higher when I grip them lighter. Less high when I use two hands instead of one. Must be the extra arm of weight helps hold it down.
Anyway being big can help hold it down.
Being Ugly may scare it into submission too.
Try cussing at it and see if it shoots 10X every time.
It's easier cleaning a gun that shoots good. Actually the cleaning can be shortened if you get the cylinder and the barrel cleaned right away and let the frame,after wiping off the outside, and the arbor wait till later.
I get Butches Bore Shine for Blackpowder. It almost gets the crude off by saturating and then flushing with the facet. Cuts the cleaning time down. Good Stuff.

 

[mykeal]

Mykeal, are you infering something I said in my post should/could be contested or corrected or contradicted? Do you disagree with something I posted? If so lets converse about it. Hash it over or shoot the s--t so to speak.
Might be interesting.

Specifically:

I also read that the expected use of the cap&ball revolvers was 7-28 feet in close combat.

I have not seen that particular claim myself, but it seems highly unlikely (the expectation, not the claim). The first Colt revolver, and widely considered the first real revolver overall, was the Paterson, followed by the Walker and then the Dragoons. Those guns were most certainly never considered to be for use in close combat. If they were the designer certainly missed the mark badly - they're far too heavy and cumbersome for that use.

I think the sights were low on the barrels so they wouldn't get loosened too easy and fall off.

That implies that Colt deliberately compromised the effectiveness of the gun for a minor maintenance item, instead of using a more positive method of fixing the sights. I find that highly unlikely; Sam Colt was a poor businessman, but a design genius.

Saber in one hand and the revolver in the other.

Romantic but not realistic. That's not how they operated.

I've read the Army then didn't have the soldiers do a lot of practice with revolvers either.

True. In fact, revolvers were very rarely even issued to regular soldiers; they were officer's weapons. The early large frame Colts were intended to be carried by mounted troops (cavalry and mounted infantry - dragoons), not regular soldiers. And their close range weapon of choice was the saber, not the revolver.

 

[Big Ugly Tall Texan]

That's why revolvers were carried with the butts forward

It left the strong hand free to draw the saber.

And as has been said, those big Colts were usually carried on the horse, not on the rider.