Military History

This goes arm-in-arm with wargaming, but if something catches my fancy maybe I'll write about it here.

M1868 Egyptian Remington Rolling Block

Recently over the Christmas/New Years break I went down to see my parents and my sisters. While there my stepdad, Ken,  and I went over to my cousins farm to fire off a few rounds with my Egyptian Remington Rolling Block rifle. I brought this in an auction some years ago and paid about $160 for it if I remember correctly. It has been sitting in my stepdad's gun room during this time, we managed to get some brass in another auction and Ken loaded up some rounds.

Some History In 1868 a large order was placed with Remington by the Egyptian Government for the No. 1 Remington Military Rifle to be chambered in the .43" cal Egyptian cartridge. Before the order could be delivered, Egypt (which had had close ties with the French), "defaulted" so that a large part of the order could be sold to France as she was greatly underarmed during the Franco-Prussion War of 1870-71. It is estimated that some 13,000 such rifles were delivered to France.

However, the original order was again placed and by 1876 the last of some 60,000 rifles were delivered. They were notiably used during the 1882 campaign against the British and in 1884 in the Sudan fighting alongside the British. The round is .43 calibre with a brass cartridge and centre-fire primer. However its propellent is still black powder.