Gun Digest 2011. Dan ShidelerЧитать онлайн книгу.
their very nature, the gas-operated guns require more hardware up front in the forearm area. It is amazing how balance can shift with something as seemingly insignificant as the gas piston. That is one reason why the floating chamber Winchester Models 50 and 59 are light up front. The Browning Double Auto also owes its excellent handling qualities to the lack of a magazine. The Franchi 48AL solves this problem by having a lightweight alloy magazine tube, so the weight up front is considerably less than, say, that of the Browning A-5. Still, the A-5 has a much livelier feel and thinner forearm than a gas-operated autoloader because it has less material up front. Some of the gas-operated autoloaders today, those designed as “upland” guns, do employ alloy magazine tubes to reduce weight. But there’s still all that hardware up front that has to be there for the gun to function.
Perhaps someone other than Beretta will attempt to revive the floating chamber system or the short recoil system. Browning attempted to bring back the short recoil system in its ill-fated A500R. However, the gun was very short-lived owing to its ugly design and mechanical problems. Recently Benelli came out with their radically different Vinci model. This rather unusual looking shotgun uses a different inertia system, eliminating the action spring that is usually found in the butt-stock. Being of modular design, the Vinci contains its entire bolt mechanism, including the action spring, in the receiver. The buttstock contains no mechanical parts. It is an ingenious system but not entirely new. The earlier mentioned Automatico VB by Bernardelli employed a similar system. It was not exactly like the Vinci, but similar in application.
The modern gas-operated autoloader is a far cry from the early versions. Today they are beautifully put-together and extremely reliable. But as long as they are dependent on all that hardware to make the gun cycle, they will never have that desired “between-the-hands” feel, and they will always be, just a bit, even if tiny bit, more susceptible to stoppage.
And that’s why there will always be a market for the “other” autoloaders.
A TRIO OF UNUSUAL REMINGTON MILITARY ROLLING BLOCK RIFLES
BY GEORGE J. LAYMAN
Perhaps it is a stroke of providence that an author may, without warning, be deluged with an entirely unexpected crop of examples of a specific commodity that serve to make a work of nonfiction an even better finished product. Such has been my experience during my research on my latest book, A Collectors Guide to the Remington Rolling Block Military Rifle and its Variations (2009: Mowbray Publishing Company, Woonsocket, RI).
This latest work is the most intriguing study of an antique firearm that I have ever encountered, and it didn’t reach its climax until the final nine months preceding publication. Never before did so many of the rare, unknown, and unexpected variations of the Remington military rolling block rifle make a showing in so short a span of time. From the practically unheard-of Remington Model 1902 in 7.62x54 mm caliber, to the Remington Cadet No. 206 in .45-70 caliber, to one of six known remaining examples of the Springfield-Remington Transformation rifles tested by the St. Louis Board, to solving the puzzle behind the Remington Greek Contract Model, never has such a roller coaster of a book ever confronted me!
In the following pages I’ll share a few of the more interesting portions of this work. The trio of of military rolling block rifles and carbines featured herein are perhaps the first or the very few seen by a majority of collectors, both tyro and advanced alike. The very presence of these three Remingtons – which include a two-band .50-70 Government caliber Rifle found in Cuba that smacks of the little known Civil Guard Model with a hybrid No. 1-1/2 and No. 1 frame in a unique caliber; a .50 caliber rimfire carbine with Cambodian markings; and a nearly nonexistent Model 1902 7mm Mauser caliber rifle of El Salvador contract – make for a rare gathering of the elusive and esoteric. Therefore let us take a truly international journey amongst a few of the many military rolling blocks that have taxed this author’s bank of knowledge to the utmost!
A REMINGTON CIVIL GUARD MODE OR SINGLE ROLLING BLOCK VARIATION UNTO ITSELF
A majority of antique military rifle collectors and students of the rolling block family of firearms have seldom been able to acquire one or more examples of a breech-loading single-shot rifle that was once catalogued by E. Remington &Sons as the Civil Guard Model. Primarily associated with early purchases of the rolling block by Spain, this elusive variant listed in Remington factory literature between 1874 and 1884 was often described as a two-band, military rolling block rifle in .43 Spanish caliber, having a 30.5-inch barrel that was coupled with a saber bayonet lug as standard equipment. Introduced during Spain’s first contract of 1869, it was intended to arm the Guardia Civil or Spanish Civil Guard, an organization which today remains an active para military-police organization serving throughout the peninsula of Spain.
Exact delivery numbers to the Spanish government are unclear at best, with a majority having been sent to Cuba to arm the Ejercito Ultramar, which was Spain’s overseas colonial armed forces. The most common number given by historians has been estimated at 3,000 pieces received by Spanish quartermasters in colonial Cuba. A very small number of these rifles have been retained by the Remington Museum, not to mention those few that had been sold during the late 1940s downsizing of the museum’s inventory.
The November 1, 1920, Remington Museum inventory list compiled by Melbourne Chambers displays a disappointing total of four, with two very unique examples that are now stored in the museum archive room. One is in a very peculiar .42 Berdan caliber, with another specimen in the proper .43 Spanish caliber but made up with a New York State action and a rubber butt plate. The author purchased one of the other Civil Guard Models that were sold off in the 1940s, which was a .58 Berdan-caliber example that had two barrel bands and a Turkish crescent moon and star stamped on the left hammer flat. Identified by a brass tag with inventory number 146, this particular Civil Guard Model has neither the correct .43 Spanish chambering, nor the standard saber bayonet lug.
None of the past or present Civil Guard Model rifles in the Remington museum is a “catalog correct” representation. The Schuyler Hartley & Graham shipment records of 1868 to 1900 list a mere 1,130 of the .43 Spanish-caliber Civil Guard Models as having been shipped to Argentina. No others of this variation are noted on this listing and recorded as shipped to any other nation in the Spanish-speaking Americas, nor even to Spain itself.
In the past 45 years of military rolling block research and collecting, the author has examined a total of four genuine catalog-correct Civil Guard Model Remington rolling block rifles, and has owned one example which was British proof-marked. It was discovered in British Honduras in the mid-1990s. All rifles of this genre observed to date have displayed evidence of having performed hard but honest service and all appeared to be in very good condition as a whole.
During the course of completion of my latest book, it was in early in 2009 that a most inscrutable Remington-manufactured military rolling block rifle was obtained. This particular arm may be described as a special order variation of Remington’s Civil Guard Model, appearing to be in a singular category all to itself. A genuine pre-1898 antique, it was discovered in Cuba, of all places, and purchased from a Russian acquaintance who is a collector and purveyor of international military antiques. Since Russian citizens may travel to Cuba and export a variety of commodities, it is a rare stroke of fortune to have friends with such privileges!
These views of the full length Cuban Rifle from both left and right side indicate it is in excellent condition overall. The Rifle’s barrel is covered with a fine pitting from the muzzle to the breech. This is primarily noticeable on the left side of the rifle. The right side of the frame has a minimum of fine pitting; however, it is noticeable to a small extent.
Partial case colors are visible on the right frame as well along with the butt plate that has faded case colors which are very brilliant internally when the plate is removed. The right side of the two barrel bands shows a clear, crisp, deeply-struck Spanish