New York contract rifle unknown caliber

[cbeck1949]

Greetings,
I just purchased a New York contract rolling block rifle and incorrectly assumed it was chambered in .50-70 Govt.

The rifle is in beautiful condition. It has the extended hammer spur with checkered pattern. The rolling bloch spur is extended off to the right with the same checkered pattern.

The action has the built in safety that when the action is closed the hammer goes to half cock and must be pulled back one more click to fire. I tried to insert a .50-70 cartridge but it was too wide. A .45 caliber cartridge is much closer.

Here are as many details as I could think of to get started:
Barrel band closest to the muzzle has the letter U on the right side.
Middle barrel band has the letter B on the right side and the letter H on the left side.
Rear most barrel band has the letter B on the right side.
Patent dates on the upper tang appear to be May 3rd and November 15, 1864, April 17, 1866, August 27, 1867 and November 7, 1871.
Ladder type rear sight has the letter B stamped on the left front.
There is a letter stamped on the left side of the receiver. It could be a B or a P. The letter H is stamped on top of the butt plate.
On top of the stock just forward of the butt plate is a small disc with the number 77. May be a regimental marking.
There is no serial number on the barrel or the receiver. There are no markings on the barrel.
There is a sling swivel at the front of the trigger guard.
There is no bayonet lug.
There are 3 cartouches: RPB on the left wrist. HSH behind it on the same side and SNY on the right wrist.
I have not done a chamber casting yet. That will be the next step.
I've read that a number of these rifles were chambered in .44-77.
Any advise or information would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Charley

[rudybolla]

These were also made in .45-70 for other state militias, IIRC.

[wsmrto]

Remington Military RBROTW indicates that those in 45/70 were issued to the Buffalo Rgt. Probably not to many of those are still around. Should be a nice keeper.

[ehull]

Lamberson catalogs of the bankruptcy period (mid-late 1880s) listed for sale the New York Model in both .50 & .45. Yours needn't be a military issue rifle. These are also often found with a buttplate with a rubber cushion built in, obviously for Creedmore style shooting.

[ehull]

To add to the foregoing, I know of no NGSNY issue or use of the .45 caliber rifle, so the presence of NGSNY inspector cartouches is unexplained. If the Buffalo Regt. Got such rifles they wouldn't have come via the state but by private purchase.

[wsmrto]

ehull: Thanks, You see I am learning from this forum. Even though I am an old dog.

[Dick Hosmer]

What is the "Buffalo Regiment"? If you mean the 10th Cavalry, they would have had Springfields.

[ehull]

City Guard of Buffalo, NY. There were numerous guard "independent companies."

[Dick Hosmer]

Thanks Ed - every day I find out how Remington-ignorant I really am!

[gnolte]

Ed and anyone else,

Several of us have been working with Charley to identify what he has. From all of the markings, etc it would appear he has a NY State model RB. Most of the information available in print indicates most of these were chambered in .50-70 Govt. Charley purchased this ammo, we met at the range only to find there was no way .50-70 was going to chamber. We attempted just to chamber a .45-70, but that was a no go either. And for "shits and grins" we attempted just to chamber a .43 Spanish (11.15x58R) and it fit just fine. We didn't want to shoot it just because it was able to be chambered, so we then performed a chamber cast. Based on measurements and comparisons it would either be a .43 Spanish or .44-77 Remington. Both .43 Spanish and .44-77 were fired. Based on the measurements of the fire formed cases, I believe we've all come to the conclusion Charley's NY State rifle appears to be chambered in .44-77 Remington. Based on this conclusion we have a couple of outstanding questions:

1) what is the real difference between .44-77 Remington and .44-77 Sharps? I ask because all of the information I've been able to dig up through Internet research says they're the same, but if you compare .44-77 Remington cases from Track of the Wolf to .44-77 Sharps cases manufactured by Jamison Brass, there's a clear difference in the location of the shoulder and therefore the length of the neck.

2) to your knowledge, were any of the NY Contract Rifles chambered in .44-77? From what we can tell, the rifle does not appear to have been re-barreled, but if it were done a 100 years ago, one may not be able to tell.

Any information or wisdom you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your help!
Greg

[ehull]

That's a new one on me. The State received a few hundred rifles in .43 Spanish at the beginning of deliveries, but to my knowledge they were standard.43 Spanish rifles, delivered fast until the Company could get production going. They were returned: In later inventories there was no mention of .43 rifles. The lack of any inspection mark on the barrel is an enigma, since all other parts were marked.

[gnolte]

Thanks! That's definitely useful information. Whilst I don't currently have the rifle in my possession, from what I recall there were no markings in the barrel. Hmmm. The plot thickens... .43 Spanish and .44-77 are so close in dimensions it's hard to determine which one you're actually dealing with.

Thanks again,
Greg

[JV Puleo]

They do show up occasionally in .43 Spanish but weren't made that way. They are rifles altered for sale in Latin America etc. I seem to remember George Layman telling me he found one in the Philippines in the 1970s in the same cache of captured arms that had a couple of Whitney-made Plymouth rifles (given to the local natives during WWII by the OSS). This would account for the caliber and the presence of the original NYS markings.

[satx78247]

check1949,

In the nearly century & a half since the 1st Remington RB was first built all sorts of modifications were made to these rifles/carbines. - Some of those changes were actually improvements, some changes were purely decorative & some of the "improvements" were anything but real improvements.
(Mrs. Grace E Goldstein, for example, "The Galveston Gun-mistress" & noted gunsmith is known to have done a lot high-quality improvements to firearms as well as truly artistic decoration on rifles/shotguns/handguns from the Republic era until her death in the late 1880s, including ornate engraving, gold/silver inlays, ivory & mother of pearl stock inlays. - Her known "signed pieces" are marked "G Gold" inside a "wreath of twisted vines covered with leaves".)

For example, a nearby museum has a "rather ordinary" 1871 Remington RB, except that it was re-chambered for .50-90WCF (the so-called "Big 50".) sometime in the 19th Century & the trigger was modified to a "hair-trigger". It also wears a long 2X brass-tube telescopic sight.
I suspect (but do not know) that this was done to make a "buffalo rifle" by some local gunsmith.
(That rifle was seized in the 1880s by our one of our Rangers, as evidence in a murder case & was later passed on to the museum's collection, so the "upgrades" are not recent.)

yours, satx