Remington Rolling Block Questions

[tjack]

The history is too involved to go into here. Check out Roy Marcot's books or Geo. Layman's. Basically, Schuyler, Hartley and Graham (SH&G), along with Winchester took over Remington in the 1880's. SH&G also owned Union Metallic Cartridge Co. The two, Remington and UMC, were joined in 1910/1911 to form Remington-UMC. Your rifle, if it has not been altered, is chambered for the 7mm Mauser cartridge. Your rifle is what is referred to as a Model 1902. Military Rolling Blocks, except for the Mexican contract, were not serial numbered. The Mex. serial # was on the bottom of the lower tang. There are #'s on the left sides of the top and bottom tangs but these are assembly #'s. You have to take off the butt stock to see them. The reference to the "Model 5" generally refers to the sporting versions of the military smokeless powder Rolling Block rifles. A lot of the terms we use today were not used by Remington but for ID convenience for collectors. If you are interested in the history in detail, you can not go wrong in getting Roy's books (he has a few that deal with Remingtons in general) or George's new book on the Military Rolling Blocks.

[roundtop]

Most of these militarys seem to have long chambers. If you are going to shoot it you will have to back the sizing die out. What I do is pad a pair of pliers and squeeze the case out of round. This will make the head stay at the breech block and blow the shoulder forwards. I mark my box for this rifle as they will not now chamber in a regular 7mm. If you size it back to standard each time, it will eventually have a head separation. I only neck size mine. Ed