New York contract rifle unknown caliber

[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!

[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.

[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