Like many others, I have a family handed-down rifle that I have no idea about. Even my late father did not really know the lineage/date of this rifle, but it is stamped "Remington" on the side so I assume at least part of it was made by them. I am a HS history teacher and enjoy showing students these older pieces, so I'd like some factual information to share with them. Any knowledge would be greatly valued.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to load in the photos I have of the gun (it says "file is too big, maximum allowed size is 256 KB"). Any ideas?
I did roughly measure the gun lengths: barrel seems to be 33-34"; total length is around 46". It has two triggers, with the end of the stock and trigger guards in brass. It also has some kind of special sight that flips up, with a round cross-hatch sight at the end of the barrel.
I know this sounds unsophisticated but that is what I am concerning these guns. Dad had a number of them in very fine shape (I guess) so I am working to figure out their history. Thank you for any help.
Jeff
ID for muzzleloading rifle
-
Mike Strietbeck
Re: ID for muzzleloading rifle
Based on your description, your rifle was probably manufactured by one o hte many gunsmiths that Remington supplied barrels andother component part to. Even with photo's, I probably couldn't identify the maker of your rifle. The following history of early Remington barrels comes from Roy Marcot's book "REMINGTON- America's Oldest Gunmaker". If your school library doesn't have a copy you might consider requesting an acquisition.
"...Barrels - Early Production
---------------------------------
For well over a century, the story has been told that in 1816, Eliphalet II asked his father for money for a rifle and was refused. Thereupon--so runs the tale--the young man went out to the smithy and forged and welded a rifle barrel. Putting it on his shoulder, he walked to Utica to have a gunsmith ream and rifle the barrel. The gunsmith is reported to have praised Eliphalet's work. Young Eliphalet hiked home, finished the rifle--and he was in the gun business!
This story, which seems to have originated as early as 1872, has been retold countless times since. While it is unlikely that a country boy would have possessed the skills to make up an entire flintlock rifle, there is little doubt that young Eliphalet forged his first rifle barrel in 1816. After all, he was a commercial iron forger with the facilities of an ironworks at his disposal--a works that had power-driven machinery for just such tasks.
To make his barrel, Eliphalet would have started with a flat iron bar called a skelp, possibly three quarters of an inch thick, about five inches wide, and as long as the finished barrel was to be-- 36 or 38 inches. Heating a short stretch of the skelp, Remington would have forged it lengthwise around a mandrel--a rod used to form and maintain the hollow bore. Bringing the iron to a welding heat (about 2,000E F) he would have hammered the joint under a triphammer until it was securely welded together. He would have proceeded, stretch by stretch, until the whole barrel was done. Then he would have ground the exterior, rough from the hammering, to a traditional octagon form, and the barrel would have been ready for reaming and rifling. This would have been the customary way to make an iron rifle barrel in the early 19th century.
Young Eliphalet could have accomplished this procedure in 1816. He had all the facilities that anyone--for example, Springfield Armory--had for doing the forging and welding. All the processes would have been familiar to the Remingtons, on the basis of the kinds of products the forge was turning out as listed in the 1820 Census report. Whether he “finished up the rifle after the Utica gunsmith had reamed and rifled the rough barrel” is much more questionable. To make a full length stock for a muzzle-loading rifle--and in 1816 a rifle almost certainly had a full length stock--is a job for an experienced gunmaker who has specialized tools. It is difficult to imagine that young Eliphalet’s skill with tools was advanced enough to undertake such a task successfully. A flintlock (which a rifle of 1816 must have had), requires that the relationship of the lock to the barrel and the trigger to the sear of the lock be exactly right or the rifle will not fire. Proper functioning of the rifle depended on precisely inletting these components into the wood of the stock, and a single small error would have been fatal to success. If it is true that Eliphalet forged a barrel in 1816, it seems very likely that he would have left completion of the rifle to the Utica gunsmith who finished the bore.
It has been said that Eliphalet’s finished rifle was so successful that neighbors wanted one for themselves, and he found himself in the gunsmith business. However, the 1820 Census of Manufactures report shows no gun materials at all among the products of the Remington forge. By the middle 1820's, there were several gunsmiths making rifles in the Mohawk Valley, including those with establishments in Utica, Johnstown, Schenectady and Albany. But no real evidence has turned up to indicate that Eliphalet Remington II made complete flintlock or percussion sporting or hunting rifles for others until much later. Much later, in 1860, which was still in the founder’s lifetime, a scholar named J. Leander Bishop published his History of Manufactures in the United States (Philadelphia, 1860). Bishop was no doubt quoting Eliphalet Remington II when he said that for many years “the business was restricted to the manufacture of rifle barrels.” But by the middle 1820s, Remington’s finery forge was making rifle barrels, as well as numerous agricultural tools.
In 1824 the Erie Canal was completed, running through what is now downtown Ilion, New York. Eliphalet Junior decided to move his iron works north from the gorge, to the south bank of the canal, probably to take advantage of this efficient means of delivering Remington products. On January 1, 1828, he bought one hundred acres of land in the Town of German Flatts, a swath of land running from the Mohawk River along present-day Otsego Street for a little more than a mile to the south. Steele's Creek ran through the southerly end of this property, and the Remingtons built a raceway to bring water from the creek to the new waterwheel that was to drive their new works. They built a stone forge shop, installing additional forge hammers for increased capacity. Apparently the equipment from the original forge site in the gorge was not moved to the new facility.
Tragedy, unfortunately, attended the move. While preparing the buildings on the new site, Eliphalet Senior, 60 years old, was hauling timber down from the original homestead, when he was thrown from the wagon and a heavy wheel passed over him. A few days later he died of his injuries and his son was no longer Eliphalet Junior, but had become Eliphalet Senior.
How long the original finery forge in the Steele's Creek gorge continued to be run is not known. Since it produced wrought iron bar stock, which is what Remington's products were made of, it seems probable that, for a time, at least, the forge continued in operation. But since Eliphalet was now the supervisor of all his family’s operations, he couldn't be at the new site on the canal bank and also at the old forge at the same time. The original forge was probably shut down before long.
Soon after the move to the bank of the canal in 1828, Eliphalet and his family moved to rented quarters in what would later be known as the Village of Ilion. Before long, however, he built a substantial brick residence on Main Street, which in later years was to serve as the offices of E. Remington & Sons.
The peak of 19th-century population of most of rural upstate New York counties and towns came about 1840. Gunsmiths had been among the settlers who had flooded in to the area, and the prosperity of upstate New York that was fostered by the highly successful Erie Canal provided customers for the products of gunshops. At that time rifle barrels were commonly welded by hand with sledge hammers, but certain enterprising individuals began to set up forges to weld iron barrels under power-driven hammers. By this time, Remington had become a major supplier of rifle barrel blanks to gunsmiths in upstate New York, and soon to much more distant customers.
Eliphalet’s rifle barrels were not finished, rifled, or ready for assembly by gunsmiths. Remington started with barrel blanks, welded under the hammer out of flat wrought iron bars. Power hammers eased the tedious, laborious process of hammer welding by hand. The resulting barrels were wrought iron tubes of suitable length, apparently rough-reamed on the inside and ground to the traditional octagon form on the outside. The gunsmith-customer finish-reamed and rifled the barrel blank, and fitted a breechplug, sights, and ramrod thimbles. He also made a flash hole (or if the rifle were to be a caplock, fitted a drum or bolster and nipple) and a stock, and did all the other work required to turn out a finished rifle.
In 1832, less than four years after moving his establishment to the location alongside the canal, Remington built a large, frame factory building on a stone foundation. Soon thereafter, twenty workmen were busy making gun barrels and other metal goods.
Gunsmith shops--whose main products were rifles--opened all across New York State, and Remington's move to the banks of the Erie made it possible for his goods to be economically shipped far and wide. Remington’s product became exclusively rifle barrels. In the 1830s, Eliphalet formed a new and distinct partnership with Benjamin Harrington of Ilion to make the non-barrel products that had formerly been made at the little forge up Steele's Creek. The few fragmentary records of Remington's activity that survive from the 1830s, primarily forwarder's receipts, all relate to the shipment of barrels with a single exception, in which the shipment included several hundred pounds of sleigh runners. All of his shipments were to known riflemakers.
In 1837, Eliphalet Remington’s son Philo came of age and entered his father’s business--which became E. Remington & Son. In 1839, son Samuel entered the business--which now became E. Remington & Sons---a name that continued to be used until 1888, despite the death of the founder in 1861. In 1849 until the third son, Eliphalet III was old enough to join his brothers in the family business.
Eliphalet Remington stamped his rifle barrels REMINGTON near the breech. Remington markings in straight line and half-moon shape are known, but the exact significance of the form is not known. It is thought that the curved form is the earlier of the two markings.
Flintlock and percussion barrels have been found with Remington’s stamping underneath, on one of the bottom flats, hidden from view when the stock is fitted. This was the individual choice of a gunsmith to hide the barrel maker’s name, as he assembled the barrel into his finished gun. If a name is exposed, it is customarily that of the gunsmith who made the rifle.
It is believed that single and double shotgun barrels stamped with Remington’s name were all imported from Europe. Some of the barrel ribs were marked: IMPORTED BY E. REMINGTON & SONS, ILION, N.Y.
A very few octagonal rifle barrels are known stamped P. & S. REMINGTON This marking has long confused collectors. It was stamped on barrels made by the short-lived partnership of Eliphalet’s sons Philo and Samuel, who carried on an independent iron business for about two years. Beginning in 1843, the young men ran their business within their father’s establishment.
Many lockplates (which Remington imported from Birmingham, England) and patch box interiors were stamped: REMINGTON or REMINGTON’S HERKIMER, N.Y. or not stamped at all. The presence of these markings has led to some confusion among modern-day collectors, as they believe that flintlock or percussion rifles or fowling pieces with “Remington-marked” lock plates, barrels, or patchbox interiors are Remington-made guns. In nearly all cases, they are not. Eliphalet Remington made few (if any) complete long guns for sale to the public prior to the Civil War. The guns that exist from this period are the product of many independent gunsmiths throughout the United States.
Remington barrels came to dominate the trade by the 1840s. Most competitors had left the business, with the sole exception of the barrel forge in Mott's Corners, southeast of Ithaca. But despite its dominance, E. Remington & Sons was not yet a large firm. By 1850, the company had 50 employees, including the four Remingtons. By 1855, the number of workers in Remington’s Armory had only risen to 75. Surviving records show that thousands of barrels were produced by Remington each year: in 1850, 5,825 barrels; in 1851, 8,061 barrels; in 1852, 10,020; in 1855, 10,000 barrels; in 1860, 6,000 gun barrels; in 1865, 15,000 barrels; and in 1870, 3,334 barrels. These figures exclude barrels utilized by the Remingtons in finished guns, which were largely or entirely military. ..."
Best regards
Mike Strietbeck
mammothinc@aol.com
"...Barrels - Early Production
---------------------------------
For well over a century, the story has been told that in 1816, Eliphalet II asked his father for money for a rifle and was refused. Thereupon--so runs the tale--the young man went out to the smithy and forged and welded a rifle barrel. Putting it on his shoulder, he walked to Utica to have a gunsmith ream and rifle the barrel. The gunsmith is reported to have praised Eliphalet's work. Young Eliphalet hiked home, finished the rifle--and he was in the gun business!
This story, which seems to have originated as early as 1872, has been retold countless times since. While it is unlikely that a country boy would have possessed the skills to make up an entire flintlock rifle, there is little doubt that young Eliphalet forged his first rifle barrel in 1816. After all, he was a commercial iron forger with the facilities of an ironworks at his disposal--a works that had power-driven machinery for just such tasks.
To make his barrel, Eliphalet would have started with a flat iron bar called a skelp, possibly three quarters of an inch thick, about five inches wide, and as long as the finished barrel was to be-- 36 or 38 inches. Heating a short stretch of the skelp, Remington would have forged it lengthwise around a mandrel--a rod used to form and maintain the hollow bore. Bringing the iron to a welding heat (about 2,000E F) he would have hammered the joint under a triphammer until it was securely welded together. He would have proceeded, stretch by stretch, until the whole barrel was done. Then he would have ground the exterior, rough from the hammering, to a traditional octagon form, and the barrel would have been ready for reaming and rifling. This would have been the customary way to make an iron rifle barrel in the early 19th century.
Young Eliphalet could have accomplished this procedure in 1816. He had all the facilities that anyone--for example, Springfield Armory--had for doing the forging and welding. All the processes would have been familiar to the Remingtons, on the basis of the kinds of products the forge was turning out as listed in the 1820 Census report. Whether he “finished up the rifle after the Utica gunsmith had reamed and rifled the rough barrel” is much more questionable. To make a full length stock for a muzzle-loading rifle--and in 1816 a rifle almost certainly had a full length stock--is a job for an experienced gunmaker who has specialized tools. It is difficult to imagine that young Eliphalet’s skill with tools was advanced enough to undertake such a task successfully. A flintlock (which a rifle of 1816 must have had), requires that the relationship of the lock to the barrel and the trigger to the sear of the lock be exactly right or the rifle will not fire. Proper functioning of the rifle depended on precisely inletting these components into the wood of the stock, and a single small error would have been fatal to success. If it is true that Eliphalet forged a barrel in 1816, it seems very likely that he would have left completion of the rifle to the Utica gunsmith who finished the bore.
It has been said that Eliphalet’s finished rifle was so successful that neighbors wanted one for themselves, and he found himself in the gunsmith business. However, the 1820 Census of Manufactures report shows no gun materials at all among the products of the Remington forge. By the middle 1820's, there were several gunsmiths making rifles in the Mohawk Valley, including those with establishments in Utica, Johnstown, Schenectady and Albany. But no real evidence has turned up to indicate that Eliphalet Remington II made complete flintlock or percussion sporting or hunting rifles for others until much later. Much later, in 1860, which was still in the founder’s lifetime, a scholar named J. Leander Bishop published his History of Manufactures in the United States (Philadelphia, 1860). Bishop was no doubt quoting Eliphalet Remington II when he said that for many years “the business was restricted to the manufacture of rifle barrels.” But by the middle 1820s, Remington’s finery forge was making rifle barrels, as well as numerous agricultural tools.
In 1824 the Erie Canal was completed, running through what is now downtown Ilion, New York. Eliphalet Junior decided to move his iron works north from the gorge, to the south bank of the canal, probably to take advantage of this efficient means of delivering Remington products. On January 1, 1828, he bought one hundred acres of land in the Town of German Flatts, a swath of land running from the Mohawk River along present-day Otsego Street for a little more than a mile to the south. Steele's Creek ran through the southerly end of this property, and the Remingtons built a raceway to bring water from the creek to the new waterwheel that was to drive their new works. They built a stone forge shop, installing additional forge hammers for increased capacity. Apparently the equipment from the original forge site in the gorge was not moved to the new facility.
Tragedy, unfortunately, attended the move. While preparing the buildings on the new site, Eliphalet Senior, 60 years old, was hauling timber down from the original homestead, when he was thrown from the wagon and a heavy wheel passed over him. A few days later he died of his injuries and his son was no longer Eliphalet Junior, but had become Eliphalet Senior.
How long the original finery forge in the Steele's Creek gorge continued to be run is not known. Since it produced wrought iron bar stock, which is what Remington's products were made of, it seems probable that, for a time, at least, the forge continued in operation. But since Eliphalet was now the supervisor of all his family’s operations, he couldn't be at the new site on the canal bank and also at the old forge at the same time. The original forge was probably shut down before long.
Soon after the move to the bank of the canal in 1828, Eliphalet and his family moved to rented quarters in what would later be known as the Village of Ilion. Before long, however, he built a substantial brick residence on Main Street, which in later years was to serve as the offices of E. Remington & Sons.
The peak of 19th-century population of most of rural upstate New York counties and towns came about 1840. Gunsmiths had been among the settlers who had flooded in to the area, and the prosperity of upstate New York that was fostered by the highly successful Erie Canal provided customers for the products of gunshops. At that time rifle barrels were commonly welded by hand with sledge hammers, but certain enterprising individuals began to set up forges to weld iron barrels under power-driven hammers. By this time, Remington had become a major supplier of rifle barrel blanks to gunsmiths in upstate New York, and soon to much more distant customers.
Eliphalet’s rifle barrels were not finished, rifled, or ready for assembly by gunsmiths. Remington started with barrel blanks, welded under the hammer out of flat wrought iron bars. Power hammers eased the tedious, laborious process of hammer welding by hand. The resulting barrels were wrought iron tubes of suitable length, apparently rough-reamed on the inside and ground to the traditional octagon form on the outside. The gunsmith-customer finish-reamed and rifled the barrel blank, and fitted a breechplug, sights, and ramrod thimbles. He also made a flash hole (or if the rifle were to be a caplock, fitted a drum or bolster and nipple) and a stock, and did all the other work required to turn out a finished rifle.
In 1832, less than four years after moving his establishment to the location alongside the canal, Remington built a large, frame factory building on a stone foundation. Soon thereafter, twenty workmen were busy making gun barrels and other metal goods.
Gunsmith shops--whose main products were rifles--opened all across New York State, and Remington's move to the banks of the Erie made it possible for his goods to be economically shipped far and wide. Remington’s product became exclusively rifle barrels. In the 1830s, Eliphalet formed a new and distinct partnership with Benjamin Harrington of Ilion to make the non-barrel products that had formerly been made at the little forge up Steele's Creek. The few fragmentary records of Remington's activity that survive from the 1830s, primarily forwarder's receipts, all relate to the shipment of barrels with a single exception, in which the shipment included several hundred pounds of sleigh runners. All of his shipments were to known riflemakers.
In 1837, Eliphalet Remington’s son Philo came of age and entered his father’s business--which became E. Remington & Son. In 1839, son Samuel entered the business--which now became E. Remington & Sons---a name that continued to be used until 1888, despite the death of the founder in 1861. In 1849 until the third son, Eliphalet III was old enough to join his brothers in the family business.
Eliphalet Remington stamped his rifle barrels REMINGTON near the breech. Remington markings in straight line and half-moon shape are known, but the exact significance of the form is not known. It is thought that the curved form is the earlier of the two markings.
Flintlock and percussion barrels have been found with Remington’s stamping underneath, on one of the bottom flats, hidden from view when the stock is fitted. This was the individual choice of a gunsmith to hide the barrel maker’s name, as he assembled the barrel into his finished gun. If a name is exposed, it is customarily that of the gunsmith who made the rifle.
It is believed that single and double shotgun barrels stamped with Remington’s name were all imported from Europe. Some of the barrel ribs were marked: IMPORTED BY E. REMINGTON & SONS, ILION, N.Y.
A very few octagonal rifle barrels are known stamped P. & S. REMINGTON This marking has long confused collectors. It was stamped on barrels made by the short-lived partnership of Eliphalet’s sons Philo and Samuel, who carried on an independent iron business for about two years. Beginning in 1843, the young men ran their business within their father’s establishment.
Many lockplates (which Remington imported from Birmingham, England) and patch box interiors were stamped: REMINGTON or REMINGTON’S HERKIMER, N.Y. or not stamped at all. The presence of these markings has led to some confusion among modern-day collectors, as they believe that flintlock or percussion rifles or fowling pieces with “Remington-marked” lock plates, barrels, or patchbox interiors are Remington-made guns. In nearly all cases, they are not. Eliphalet Remington made few (if any) complete long guns for sale to the public prior to the Civil War. The guns that exist from this period are the product of many independent gunsmiths throughout the United States.
Remington barrels came to dominate the trade by the 1840s. Most competitors had left the business, with the sole exception of the barrel forge in Mott's Corners, southeast of Ithaca. But despite its dominance, E. Remington & Sons was not yet a large firm. By 1850, the company had 50 employees, including the four Remingtons. By 1855, the number of workers in Remington’s Armory had only risen to 75. Surviving records show that thousands of barrels were produced by Remington each year: in 1850, 5,825 barrels; in 1851, 8,061 barrels; in 1852, 10,020; in 1855, 10,000 barrels; in 1860, 6,000 gun barrels; in 1865, 15,000 barrels; and in 1870, 3,334 barrels. These figures exclude barrels utilized by the Remingtons in finished guns, which were largely or entirely military. ..."
Best regards
Mike Strietbeck
mammothinc@aol.com