Is it a Remington-made receiver?

[Don Eigler]

Greetings,

We’ve had an RB in my family since 1958 but no one has paid any attention to it, that is, until now. I’m in the midst of trying to learn about RBs, their history, and the history specific to our RB. My first stop was George Layman’s book, which I greatly enjoyed and which has helped me piece together a lot, but many questions remain. I thought perhaps some of you might be kind enough to help out.

I’m a newbie to this forum and since this is my first posting, I’ll limit myself to just one question: Is there a definitive way of telling if an RB receiver was manufactured by Remington in the United States? A somewhat less expansive question is whether there is a definitive way of telling whether my RB receiver was manufactured by Remington.

Some aspects of the receiver and action of my RB are:
1) Long lower tang with wood screw
2) No steps on the sides of the receiver
3) Concave center-fire breechblock
4) Plate added to breechblock to give it "ears"
5) Sliding left-side extractor with bevel on the side facing the muzzle
6) Extractor retaining screw on the left side of the receiver
7) Plugged hole at the front of the trigger guard where other RBs have a ring for attaching a sling
Letter 'C' stamped on the small plate that gives the breechblock its "ears" ( just to the left side of the hole for the firing pin
9) Letter 'C' stamped on the center-line of the bottom of the receiver just behind where the forestock joins to the receiver
10 For what it's worth: the letter 'C' stamped on the rear sling attachment point
10) The top surface of the upper tang has a two-line stamping:
Top Line : REMINGTONS ILION N.Y. U.S.A.
Bottom Line: PAT. MAY 3D NOV. 15TH 1864 APRIL 17TH 1866
11) The left surfaces of the upper and lower tangs are stamped with the letter 'C'
12) The left surfaces of the upper and lower tangs are stamped with the number 93348

There are stampings on the bottom of my RB's barrel which clearly show that my RB was worked on in Belgium between 1877 and 1892. One of those stampings, a star over the letter 'K' inspector's mark, also appears on the left side of my receiver just forward of the screw that retains the extractor. In addition the bottom of my RB's barrel has the number 869 stamped on it. This number has also been stamped on the left side of the lower tang and the under side of the upper tang. The stamping on the lower tang partly overstamps the number 93348. I believe this to be a serial number, and that it was applied no earlier than the Belgian work on the barrel.

So far as I can discern, what I have is a Type 1, so-called “Transformed,” receiver with the earliest variant of concave breechblock that found its way to Belgium where it was re-barreled or re-chambered after which it was assigned serial number 869. But was the receiver made by Remington? George Layman writes that European manufacturers continued to build RBs with concave breechblocks long after August 1870. Did the European manufacturers ever use the small plate to add “ears” to the breechblock? Did they ever build receivers with long lower tangs? Is there a definitive criterion or set of criteria by which we can establish that an RBs receiver was made by Remington? And what do all those funky ‘C’ s stamped all over my RB denote?

I see that I have failed to restrict myself to just one question. Please forgive my enthusiasm.

Don Eigler

[ehull]

Your analysis is correct: you have a Remington made and marked "transformed" musket frame which was re-barreled in Belgium. The musket was very likely a purchase by France for the Franco-Prussian War, then sold as surplus. Being marked "Remington," it was made by Remington.

[Don Eigler]

Thanks Ed. I thought that might be the case. I failed to see mention of this in George Layman's book, but sometimes I miss what is right in front of my eyes. In fact, if you want to hide something from me, that's the best place to put it.

Correction to my original post.

In my original post I mentioned a marking (item #8) in the form of the letter 'C' stamped onto the small plate that creates the "ears" for the breechblock. That was an error on my part. I've attached a picture that shows how I got deceived into thinking I was looking at the letter 'C'. I've also attached another picture taken with different lighting and highly magnified that shows my error. This is clearly a pin. My guess is that its function was to keep the small plate aligned along the transverse axis of the breechblock during brazing. Does anyone know if this is correct? Is that small plate brazed into place?

Having discovered that this is a pin instead of a stamping, I went back to George Layman's book and sure enough... there it is. Careful inspection (actually, really careful inspection) of the upper left image on page 17 and the image on page 172 reveal the presence of the same pin.

Apologies for the error in my original post.

Don Eigler