Remington-Lee Model 1879
Forgotten Weapons
•
10m
When we think of James Paris Lee, we usually think of the British family of Lee-Enfield rifles. However, the US Navy actually adopted an early version of Lee's action before the British, in 1879. In addition, this rifle was the first use of the detachable box magazine, a patented invention of Lee's.
Lee initially took his design to the Sharps company, because Remington (where he did have ties form previous firearms endeavors) was trying to push the tube-magazine Remington-Keene rifle into military service. Lee's design was founded on an attempt to improve upon the tube magazine, and Remington did not want to divide its efforts at that time. The superintendent of the Sharps company at that time was Hugo Borchardt, and he was able to devise an effective way to manufacture Lee's box magazine. The Navy's 300 guns were put into production, but Sharps fell into bankruptcy before they were completed.
By this time, the Army had rejected the Remington-Keene, and Lee was able to interest the company in his rifle. He took the partial receivers from Sharps over to Remington, where the rifle order was completed and delivered. More sales would follow, and Remington would slowly improve the rifle bit by bit. Tomorrow, we will take a look at the 1885 model...
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Nambu Type 96 & Type 99 LMGs
The Type 96 and Type 99 Nambu light machine guns were arguably the best LMGs used by any nation during WWII - they were light, handy, accurate, durable, and reliable. Designed by Kijiro Nambu to replace his 1922 Type 11 LMG (which was fed by a unique hopper mechanism using 5-round rifle stripper ...
-
Pedersen PA Carbine
We have done a number of videos recently on various different Pedersen long guns (the PA rifle, the Japanese copy, shooting the PB rifle, etc), but there was one version that I have not covered yet (aside from the US trials rifles). That's the Vickers factory PA carbine. Only a small number of th...
-
Merwin & Hulbert Revolvers
The Merwin & Hulbert company was a short-lived firearms manufacturing partnership between designer Joseph Merwin and the Hulbert brothers as financiers. Merwin wanted to design a particularly strong and high-quality revolver, and he succeeded - his guns are arguably some of the best revolvers of ...
