doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com OT Catalog Descriptions

here's an example of one I passed on the first 3 times I viewed it. Listed as a "South American Rolling Block military rifle in .43 Spanish". I have no interest in military guns most the time, but the 4th time I went back to view it something caught my eyes. The action was flat side, and octagon top, on a military rifle? Then I noticed the buttplate was a Sporting Rifle style, and suddenly I got very curious. No scale to let me know what size it was, but hints of the octagon top, flat side action made me think it wasn't a #1, but was a super rare #1 1/2 Cadet rifle built and sold by M. Hartley & Son in New York. The company was owned by Marcellus Hartley who also owned Remington at the time, so probably the most rare Cadet Rifle version made, and not .43 Spanish, but .45-70! These rifles are about 3/4 scale to a true #1 Military rifle!
Middle rifle in their catalog page:


I've only seen two others ever show up for sale, and they were both about 20 years ago, and sold for $2k. I waited for the final minutes and tossed in my maximum bid, and got it for about 1/4th of my bid. Drove to the auction and picked it up a few days later and confirmed that it was what I thought! A true .45-70 Cadet rifle based on the #1 1/2 Sporting rear half! This to a Remington collector is like the needle in a haystack find. Something I never even looked for as they were so rare that most advanced Remington collectors don't know they ever existed.