French Remington Rolling Block in 8mm Lebel
Single Shot Rifles
•
8m 4s
The Remington Rolling Block, introduced in 1866, was one of the most prolific single shot military rifles in the world. The combination of aggressive marketing, low cost, and an excellent design led to Remington selling literally millions of Rolling Block rifles to a huge number of military forces for several decades.
By 1914, the era of the single shot military rifle was pretty much over, and Remington had ceased production of all their centerfire models of the Rolling Block. Until the French called, that is. France needed a reliable but inexpensive simple rifle to arm rear echelon troops like drivers and guards so that the modern Lebel and Berthier rifles could be concentrated on the front lines of the repidly growing First World War where they were needed most.
The French had bought black powder Rolling Blocks during the Franco-Prussian War, and were familiar with the gun. The ordered 100,000 new Rolling Blocks in late 1914, chambered for the 8mm Lebel cartridge. These would be the only single-shot rifles manufactured entirely new for use in WWI, and Remington would follow this contract with another (less successful) for Mle. 1907/15 Berthier rifles.
Up Next in Single Shot Rifles
-
Winchester Thumb Trigger Rifle
The Winchester Thumb Trigger rifle was a very inexpensive boy's rifle developed from the Model 1902. It is a single-shot .22 rimfire bolt action system, on which the trigger was replaced by a thumb-activated sear behind the bolt. In theory, this was to allow greater accuracy by requiring less for...
-
An Overview of 4-Bore Stopping Rifles
The 4-bore (approximately 1"/25mm bore diameter) is the largest shoulder-fired rifle actually used for hunting. Developed in the days of black powder muzzleloaders, it was intended to be the ultimate rifle of last resort, to stop a charging elephant, rhinoceros, or other angry behemoth by sheer s...
-
Barton Jenks' Model 1867 Rolling Bloc...
Barton Jenks was parts of a family rifle with inventors. These included Joseph Jenks, who was granted the first patent in the American colony in 1646 (for a sawmill design), his uncle William Jenks who created the Jenks Mule-Ear carbine, and his father Alfred who was an innovator in textile machi...
