Help please for origin of a Remington rolling block rifle

[JV Puleo]

You really need to get George Layman's newest book. It IS NOT a rehash of his earlier work but completely new and has a great deal more material that has only come to light recently. In the case of the Swedish rifles, we have a letter from the director of the CG works to Col. Watson Squire of Remington discussing the early production in which he mentions paying for the specialized tooling used to manufacture the rifles as well as installing the new American machine tools needed to produce them. In the interest of full disclosure, I confess that I edited the book and did quite a bit of the research associated with it so I have almost as much knowledge of the new documents as George does.

There are post 1874 CG-made actions that still have the locking screws - we have one here, a carbine, dated 1877. As yet we do not know why this is the case. The original Japanese contract rifles have the locking screws (at least the Remington museum sample does) as did the Austrian-made Paget rifles.

[Dutchman]

I figured you had a wormhole into Sweden. I've seen that kind of information come out of Sweden for the Swedish Mausers.

When I first started getting into Swede RB about 1999/2000 I got Layman's book. The Swedish section was very thin and there were some mistakes but there really wasn't any information about them as they had always kept them in Sweden. Once the rifles started getting out then the questions started. I imported about 30 rolling blocks from Sweden in that time period. We were all learning at the same time... and we're still learning.

When Dana Jones was in Sweden doing research for "Crown Jewels: The Mauser in Sweden" I had hoped that he would try and sweep up as much as he could on the rolling blocks but the time he had at the Carl Gustaf museum and the museum director was short and condensed as to topic. Much of what we've gathered has been anecdotal from having rifles in-hand. I will get Layman's new edition and give it a hard look. I'm sure there will be more questions and maybe with a little more information to form the new questions we can get more concise information out of Sweden. I'm trying to establish broader contacts in Sweden to "wick" what information I can get on Swedish military firearms, mostly Mausers.

Dutch

[ehull]

You definitely have a Remington Swedish Model rifle, and an unusually nice one at that. The unique features of the 10,000 made at the Remington plant are the frame with original Remington tang markings, and the forestock having both band retainer springs and a metal nose cap. My own example has six groove rifling as well. Your rifle, as with most of this model, was later converted to centerfire from the original .50 rimfire. Documentation on the sale of the 10,000 rifles and 20,000 breech systems comes from the Remington company archives, among other sources. I have an original tintype photograph showing a Swedish soldier holding this exact model rifle.

[ROLLING BLOCK]

Thankyou ehull for your reply to this post, Very interesting that you have one of these rifles. Question? would your one have the TN on the barrel just forward of receiver and is it possible that Remington made the barrel for this rifle, which would make almost American.

[ehull]

Yes, my rifle has the TN inspector's mark. I have no doubt that your rifle (as mine) has the original Remington made barrel. Thus, it is an American product supplied to Sweden in advance of that country getting production going.

[ROLLING BLOCK]

ehull, many thanks for your reply regarding the TN mark as it has confirmed to me that the rifle is, in fact, Remington made. I had always felt that the gun was Remington from the time I purchased it and with very close inspection of the barrel\receiver struck mark I could not detect any change of barrel evidence. I also have a Swede made rifle with the original Remington made action with which to compare and they are two different guns, totally. The question now would be, why would Remington go from the five land barrel to a six land barrel for a contract of only ten thousand rifles??? the cost of tooling would have been high.

[ehull]

The company would make whatever the customer wanted, if they didn't want the "standard" product. That's why there are so many different variations of the Remington Military rifle: caliber, barrel length, etc. Only the frame stayed "standard" though it evolved over time to incorporate different extractors and safety features.

[ROLLING BLOCK]

Hi again ehull, thanks again for your input, any chance we could exchange pics of these rifles?