I have a really mysterious Rolling Block that I have not been able to find anything about. It's a 2 band rifle with the following markings:
Barrel-none
Backstrap- Remingtons Patent
Pat. May 3rd Nov 15th 1864 April 17th 1868
Bottomstrap-XPTL 1000
Left Receiver-Model 1871
Right Receiver- U.S.
SPRINGFIELD (All located below an eagle)
1872
Stock- In script letters 'ELA' in an oval
Buttplate on top near screw- US
The forestock is capped with a beautiful pewter(?) cap
The rifle is about .50 cal
The strange thing about the rifle is that while there are cartridge extracters present, the gun has been converter to a cap and ball rifle. I don't know when this was done, but the gun has been in my family for over 50 years.
Does ANYONE have any idea of the history of this rifle? I've checked with the Springfield Armory historian and the Remington historian and no luck. I hope someone has some idea. Thanks
One really strange Rolling Block
-
Roland Wommack
rolling block muzzle loader
I just removed a muzzle loading barrel from a similar conversion. The interesting thing was that the threads on the muzzle loading barrel were conventional vee threads not matching the remington square threads. The rifle had a bit of "belly" to the stock and aparently was converted in the ninteenth century. Several old timers (I'm 67) told me they had seen similar conversions. I believe some backyard gunsmith did the job.