Hello to you all,
Please help me with the following gun
This is the information we have already found out:
First of all i know the gun was originalli a rifel but i think some
barbarian made it into a carbine.
Also i found a 3 line adres at top of the tang. It is differcult to read,
but a very good friend of mine, remington collector, is also sure it is a 3
line adres.
After carefully measuring the cast we compared the dimensions with all kinds
of calibres found in the Cartridges of the World. I think it is a 11,43 x
55R.
The letters M.J.P or M.I.P in a big star just unther 3 small stars
At the bottom of the barrel i found A 9. 1
Top of the tang numbered F4263
bottom tang F1971
There are also a few scratch marks.
Shooting the old girl has been quite a problem for me. For nearly a year I
have tried to move heaven and earth in my search for 43 Turkish cartridges.
Apparently they do not exist any more, at least not as new brass cases.
So we decided to make some ourselves. We have made a wax-casting from the
chamber and combined that with the information from Cartridges of the World.
It is a lot of time-consuming work, but I have machined some cartridges for
my rifle. During our latest monthly Black-powder gathering I became a very happy man, because the old rifle functioned flawlessly.
The shells sealed of the chamber very well and were loaded with 65 grains of
FF Elefant Black-powder in combination with LR-primers from CCI. The bullet
was a 360 grainer soft-lead made from Lyman-die's No 439186 that was seated
on the powder with a patch.
I also got a reaction from another Remington collector via the message board
on Antique guns :
According to Jerry Janzen's "Bayonets of the Remington Cartridge Period"
Turkey ordered 400,000 rolling blocks from Remington. Remington did not
accept the order. He says that there are TWO known examples: one in the
Smithsonian and the other in the Remington Museum. They are probably
prototypes as they differ from each other. So, its not likely many of us
will be familiar with markings on these rifles. FYI, the caliber of the
Turkish cartridge is 11.43x59R, not the "55R" as listed in Barnes (one of
the MANY errors in his book). In his dimensional data he lists the case
length as 2.30" which equals 58.4mm.
I hope you have the information you requested, if not ask me for more.
If you want to have some pictures mail me at jkiers@home.nl
A despered reloader in the Netherlands
Best regards,
Jan Kiers