doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Creedmoor rifle

Thought I'd post this one, just because I recently picked it up, and it's a pretty exciting old rifle to me! This is a Remington Creedmoor Long range Rifle. One of less than 300 built at Remington back in the 1873-1878 era when long range shooting suddenly was the latest craze for American shooters.
The story is known to most I'd guess, but basically the Irish World Champs were full of themselves after trouncing the British in 1873, so they challenged the US to a long range match at 800-1000 yds. At the time American shooters thought 500 yds. was a long ways to shoot, and had no long range competitive shooters! But they quickly put together a team of mostly New York National Guardsmen, and accepted the challenge.
The match was to take place in New York, on Long Island, at Creed's Farm. Also known as Creed's Moor for the swampy terrain, and later shortened to Creedmoor.
The American teams were divided among Remington and Sharps shooters, and each company designed and built the rifles to be used in the match. The Irish specified rifles had to be made in the USA, as they shot Rigby rifles, and didn't want the Americans to get equal rifles from Rigby. But Rigby also shot on the Irish team, and likely would have sabotaged the guns anyway.
For Remington, they chose LL Hepburn to design and build the rifles. The rifles had to be 10 lbs. maximum, no longer than 34" barrels, no set triggers, and iron sights. So Hepburn used standard Rolling Block Sporting actions, with pistol grip lower tangs, and fitted them with half octagon barrels to make the weight and length limits. Major Henry Fulton was given one to test, and eventually owned #3314. George Custer was given #3300, though he never was part of the US team. It was simply an advertising ploy to send one to Custer. Both guns were made in 1874 by Remington, and supposedly LL Hepburn personally assembled all the guns used by the Remington shooters.
This particular Creedmoor Roller is one of only a few made with a full round contoured barrel! It's also in the mid 1500 serial number range, a full year ahead of those used in the Creedmoor matches! And a full year ahead of Remington adding this model to their 1874 catalog! So whoever owned this extremely early Creedmoor rifle must have been connected at Remington to get one so early! It's a .44-77 Bottle Neck cartridge. Used to be called the "Remington-Sharps Bottleneck", but it's simply been named the .44-77 Sharps Bottleneck later.







As you can see it was missing the windage globe front sight, and the long range vernier tang sight. Some also had a "heel base" for shooters who used the back position. This rifle has the holes in the stock for a heel sight base, but it too is missing. I have a spare base, so once i get the correct screws, I'll install the base so it looks correct.
I had a windage globe Remington front sight, but no long range rear. So I ordered one from The Original Sight Co. and it's a perfect copy! Looks so close to originals you could easily pass it off as an original!





[img]https://i.imgur.com/GSMVBfYl.jpg?1[/img]

I've wanted one of these Creedmoor rifles for many decades. But with so few ever made, the demand among Remington collectors has driven them to astronomical levels. I got lucky with this one, and all the stars aligned to allow me to add it to my collection of single shot rifles.

A final note! The US beat the Irish at Creedmoor in 1874, and proceeded to dominate long range shooting the next four years! So much so that other teams from half a dozen countries tried unsuccessfully to beat them for 4 years, and finally just quit showing up for matches. The result was Long range shooting died off, and the guns were impossible to sell. Remington originally sold these rifles for $150 in 1873-74, and a standard Rolling Block sold for $28. By the end in 1878 Remington had discounted these guns to less than 1/3rd of the original price to try and move the remainder of their stock.