The 1870s were a dynamic period for firearms inventors and innovation around the world. The preceding decade had seen the end of the reign of the single shot percussion ignition muzzleloading rifle as the infantry weapon of choice and the rise of the breechloading metallic cartridge firearm as the preferred choice for armies around the world. While most military long arms were still single shot designs as the 1870s began, new types of actions were being experimented with and in places like Germany the Model 1871 Mauser Rifle was starting to prove the potential superiority of the bolt action rifle over hinged breech designs like the American Trapdoor, British Snider and French Tabatière systems. In America the Winchester Repeating Arms Company had proved the viability of an underbarrel tubular magazine design and the success of earlier US military repeating arms like the Spencer and Triplett & Scott designs had proved that tubular magazine in the butt of the gun could function reliably as well. While the US Ordnance Department remained rather conservative and continued to show a preference for single-shot arms designs, by the latter part of the 1870s it was determined that it would be expedient to convene a board to assess potential viability of repeating rifle designs for US military use.

To that end in 1878 an Ordnance Board of Review was convened pursuant to an Act of Congress approved on November 21, 1877. The goal of the board was to “Select a Magazine Gun for the U.S. Military Service.” The Ilion, NY based firm of E. Remington & Sons had been a long-time small arms contractor for the US Government and their single shot Rolling Block rifles were one of the most used military rifle designs around the world. Although the Rolling Block was very successful, the firm did not have a viable repeating rifle design in their product line. The requirements for board submission stipulated that the gun was to be chambered for the .45-70-405 Government cartridge then in use with the Model 1873 Trapdoor Rifle, and the length and power of that round inherently limited the types of actions that could reliably handle that cartridge. At that time Winchester, the leading repeating rifle maker in America, did not offer a rifle chambered for the .45-70 cartridge. This was because their current toggle link based lever action design could not accommodate the cartridge. It would not be until 1886 when the firm introduced John Browning’s Model 1886 rifle that they would have an action that could reliably function with that cartridge.

To this end Remington obtained the rights to a series of patents held by New Jersey gun designer John W Keene. Keene (1828-1879) had received no less than nine firearms patents between 1874 and 1877 and had actually been a witness to William Ward’s 1871 patent which would be included in the design of the Ward-Burton rifles and carbines. Keene actually acknowledged the work of Willian Ward and Bethel Burton in some of his early patent applications. Most of Keene’s patents were noted to be an “Improvement in Magazine Fire-Arms”. Three of the salient patents for the rifle were all granted on February 24, 1874. U.S. Patents #147946 and #147949 were for “Improvement in Carries for Magazine Fire-Arms” and U.S. Patent #147948 was for an “Improvement in Cut-Off Mechanisms for Magazine Fire-Arms.”

Keene’s design was for a bolt-action repeating rifle with a tubular magazine located under the barrel. The magazine could be loaded either via a gate on the belly of the gun below the receiver or through the open bolt itself. The design also included a magazine cut-off on the left side of the receiver, allowing the rifle to be used as a single shot and saving the cartridges in the magazine for “emergencies” when rapid fire was essential. The number of cartridges that could be carried in the magazine depended on the barrel length and varied from as many as nine to as few as six. An additional cartridge could be carried in the chamber as well. The bolt had an external cocking piece that resembled a conventional hammer, which made it easy for anyone handling the gun to know immediately if the rifle was cocked or not. This had been a major complaint about the Ward-Burton bolt action rifles and carbines during their 1871-1872 field trials, as that gun’s “cock on closing” design left a cocked rifle with a round the chamber in the hands of men who had little actual firearms safety training. Accidental discharges quickly evolved into a general fear and distrust of a gun that did not obviously indicate to the man using it that was loaded, cocked and ready to fire. The use of the hammer like cocking piece resolved this problem and was positively commented on during the board’s evaluation of the design. Keene’s simple, yet sturdy bolt action design was also well adapted to use with the large .45-70 Government cartridge that was specified for the Army rifle trials. 

Some 27 different designs were submitted to the board for evaluation in the summer of 1878. These included five from Winchester (four of which were Hotchkiss designs), three from the Whitney Arms Company (including two Burgess designs and one from Tiesing), three from the Sharps Rifle Company, one from James Paris Lee and one from R.S. Chaffee & J.N. Reece, just to name a few. Many of the inventors and designs are essentially unknown today and are little more than footnotes in the history of firearms development. Interestingly a number of designs were rejected out of hand for failure to comply with the requirement that the submission must be chambered for the standard issue .45-70 cartridge. Submissions with calibers as small as .32 to as large as .44 were rejected out of hand for failure to comply with this requirement.

Keene presented his design to the board on behalf of Remington on July 9, 1878. After Keene explained his deign, the board spent part of the day testing the gun, as well as a submission known as the Lewis-Rice gun. The Remington-Keene design was designated as entry #17. The board continued testing of the Remington-Keene design the following day. A few days later, the board decided that all entries would have to be submitted by August 31 and that no submissions after that date would be accepted. On September 3 the board continued testing the Keene design, along with entry #8 from the Sharps Rifle Company, #13 from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, and the one of the Hotchkiss designs, #19, also submitted by Winchester. The testing of these arms continued on the following day. Additional testing took place over the next couple of weeks. In addition to basic safety and operational tests, the designs were tested for general accuracy, rapidity of fire and how they would stand up to service in adverse conditions. To that end “dust” tests as well as “rust” tests were performed to see how the guns would handle harsh environments. Here the Remington-Keene had some issues. The “dust” test fouled the magazine cut off switch, forcing the testing to be continued as a single-shot gun. The rusting test also froze the firing pin, which rendered the gun inoperable until the firing pin was freed. Interestingly the Keene design had suffered several failures to fire during testing that were attributed to the firing pin’s shape but could have been related to the strength of the strike as well. While some of the cartridges detonated on the second strike, others did not, even after three or four strikes. When these cartridges were subsequently successfully fired from a Springfield Rifle, it was clear that the ammunition itself was not defective. 

In the end, the winner of the competition was submissions #19, one of the Winchester-Hotchkiss designs. This gun did not suffer from the ignition issues that the Remington had experienced, and while the accuracy tests were nearly identical, the Hotchkiss design performed better in the harsh environment adversity testing than the Remington did. However, in the end the Remington-Keene design performed well enough that 250 of the guns were ordered in a military “musket” configuration for testing by the US Navy. The Navy also acquired 300 of the James Paris Lee designed arms for testing as well. As one Navy report noted, "The Hotchkiss repeating rifle has also been introduced, and these together with the Remington-Keene and the Lee guns, are considered sufficient for all experimental purposes in settling the relative value of the several (magazine) systems ... (the Hotchkiss along with) the 250 Remington-Keene and 300 Lee guns are sufficient to arm all the ships in commission with repeating rifles and to test the relative value of the three systems, viz magazines in the butt, beneath the barrel, and detachable."

In addition to the US Navy, an additional 600 Remington-Keene “Frontier Rifles” were acquired during 1880 and 1881 for use by the Interior Department’s reservation based Native American “Indian Police”. Unfortunately, no further government orders were forthcoming. Remington even submitted an “Army” Rifle for the 1881 Ordnance Board Trials, but it was not selected for field testing like Chaffee-Reece design was.

So, Remington began trying to market the innovative design to foreign military powers, much like they had with their Rolling Block Rifles, as well as to the civilian market and sportsmen. An ad for the military rifles noted that the “Army Rifle” was available with a 32 ½” barrel in .43 and .45 calibers, “Carrying 10 cartridges, 9 in Magazine, 1 in the Chamber.” The “Navy Rifle” had a 29 ¼” barrel and was available in the same calibers, “Carrying 9 Cartridges.” Both guns were offered for $22 each with a saber bayonet offered for an additional $4 and an angular (socket) bayonet offered for an additional $2. A military carbine was also offered with a 22” barrel, “Carrying 7 Cartridges,” for the same price as the rifles, but with no provision to accept a bayonet.

Another period ad aimed at the civilian populace noted that the “Frontier Rifle” was the “Model Furnished Interior Department for arming the Indian Police”. The ad further noted that that gun has a “Plain Walnut Stock, Military Finish, with Swivels for Slings, 24 Inch Barrel, carrying 9 Cartridges.” The price was $22 each. For sportsmen, the firm offered four primary variants, listed as options A, B, C and D. The basic “A” style was $25 and featured “Plain Open Sights, Walnut Stock, Oil Finish, 24 ½” Barrel, carrying 9 Cartridges.” Option “B” was the same but included a “Half-Octagon Barrel, Pistol Grip Stock, checkered” and was priced at $30. Option “C” was “Same Gun as above” but added “Combination Peep and Open Rear Sights, Bench Front Sight” and was $35. For those with deeper pocketbooks there was an option “D”. This included “Extra Fine Stock, Pistol Grip, Rubber Butt Plate, as per cust, made only to special order. Price $60.000 and upward, according to style of finish.” In an attempt to make the guns somewhat more appealing to the sporting crowd, in addition to .45-70 they were available in .40-60 Winchester and .43. While most references assume this was “.43 Spanish”, which it could well have been, one has to wonder if it was really .43 Egyptian. As the “.43 caliber” was mentioned in the military rifle ad and since Remington had sold large numbers of Rolling Block arms to the Egyptians in .43 Egyptian, it would seem logical that they made the guns available in that chambering. Of course, they may have offered the guns in both .43 variants in hopes of selling to both the Middle Eastern and South American markets.

Unfortunately, the design was probably a little too ahead of its time and too expensive to get much traction in the civilian market. The result was lackluster sales. A variety of events all conspired to bring Remington-Keene production to a premature end. Keene himself died in 1879, ending any further innovation or improvement to the design from its inventor. In 1886, Remington filed for bankruptcy and in 1888 the assets were acquired by Marcellus Hartley and his firm Hartley & Graham, reorganizing the business as the Remington Arms Company. The new version of the company initially focused on the most successful parts of their product line, which were single shot rifles based on their Rolling Block action and Remington Hepburn designs. Finally, Remington had entered a relationship with James Paris Lee to produce bolt action rifles based on his designs with removable magazines. This technology made the tubular magazine design of the Remington-Keene obsolete. In the end, only about 5,000 Remington-Keene rifles of all patterns and variants were produced circa 1880-1883, although the new owners of the company were certainly offering “new old stock” Remington-Keene rifles for sale for at least a decade after they acquired the company.

Offered here is an EXCELLENT condition example of a rare Remington-Keene Carbine. It has a 20 ½” carbine barrel with a half-stock forend and for all practical purposes follows the form of the “Frontier Rifle”, with a shorter barrel. The gun is blued throughout with a color casehardened buttplate and cocking piece, bright bolt and cartridge lifter and a carbine style stock and butt. The forend is secured by a combination nose cap and barrel band, with a sling swivel mounted beneath it. An accompanying swivel is present in the toe of the butt. A second barrel band secures the magazine tube to the barrel near the muzzle and mounts a dovetailed front sight blade. A military pattern ladder rear sight of the same type used on the Indian Police rifles is mounted on the barrel, forward of the receiver. The magazine cut off switch is located on the reverse of the gun, on the forward part of the receiver. A trap in the butt is present for the storage of a multi-piece cleaning rod, which is not present. The top of the bolt is marked in three lines:

E. REMINGTON & SONS. ILION, N.Y.

PAT.  FEB’Y 24 MCH. 17.  1874  JAN 18

SEPT 26 1876  MCH. 20  JULY 31.  1877

The left rear of the receiver is marked 45 over 70 in two vertical lines, indicating the caliber of the rifle. The number 1877 is stamped in the stock, behind the triggerguard and may be a serial number of some sort, although in my experience the only Remington-Keene rifles that were “serial numbered” were the Department of the Interior Indian Police Rifles.

The gun is 100% complete, correct, and original in every way. The gun retains about 93%+ of its original bright blued finish on the 20 ½” round barrel, magazine tube and receiver, with some thinning and minor wear. The gun shows some light use and wear, but no abuse. There are a couple of minor dings in the barrel on the reverse of the barrel, 3 ½” to 4” back from the upper barrel band. The metal does show some lightly scattered freckled surface mixed with the blue on the barrel and magazine tube. The bright bolt shows oxidized freckling and discoloration as well, along with some minor pinpricking. The face of the muzzle shows some moderate oxidation and some very light pitting, as would be expected. The hammer shaped cocking piece has deep bluish patina, retaining only the most minor traces of its original case colored mottling, and also shows some speckled oxidation, age discoloration and light surface pinpricking similar to that on the bolt. The case hardened buttplate has a rich bluish-gray mottle patina with some nice traces of case coloring. The rifle retains the original ladder rear sight and the dovetailed blade front sight, along with both of its original sling swivels, one on the forend cap band and the other in the toe of the stock near the butt plate. The stock of the rifle rates about EXCELLENT as well. It is solid, complete, and full length with no breaks or repairs. The Remington-Keene stock design is notoriously weak in the wrist area, and most surviving examples show major cracks, breaks and repairs in that area. This rifle shows only a minor hairline grain crack running in an arc about 2” or so from the left rear of the receiver tang and curling down towards the wrist. This appears to be a surface grain crack that is crisp, tight and quite stable. It is barely noticeable, non-structural, and mentioned for exactness and correctness in the description. There is also a 3”-4” tight diagonal grain crack emanating from the stock bolt on the reverse and angling upwards to the barrel channel. Again, this is tight and not particularly noticeable and does not appear to be structural. The stock shows no signs of having been sanded and remains very crisp. However, the wood does show some lightly scattered minor bumps, dings, and mars from handling and use.

The rifle is mechanically excellent and functions smoothly and correctly in every way. The magazine cut-off switch also functions perfectly as well, and smoothly moves between the on and off positions. The bore of the rifle is in about FINE condition. It is mostly bright and retains crisp, deep rifling. The bore shows some frosting in the grooves as well as some light oxidation along its entire length, with a couple of minor areas of light pitting here and there.