Full video with reloading segment and clip solid file available here:
https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/videos/ep-12-rem-lee-app
Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, and they are actually pretty easy to reload for. The unavailability of factory ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a daunting prospect, but for a pretty simple investment in tools and time one can make up ammunition and have a lot of fun with rifles like this.
That’s the idea behind a new series here on black powder military rifles. Each month, my friend – and handloader – Tom and I will take out a different model to have some fun at the range and compare how they handle. And then we will show you how to make the ammunition for them. So grab your pith helmet, pause “Zulu” and join us! Today is Episode Twelve: The 1885 Remington-Lee!
Watching Ian work that action…
I’m struck by the idea that we’ve been building bolt-actions backwards for years and years. The right-handed person has to drop their primary hand to work the bolt, losing control of the rifle’s trigger and primary grip. Ian, left-handed that he is, can work a right-handed rifle better than a right-handed person can…
Which begs the question: Why the hell do we think that this is the “right” way to design a bolt-action rifle for the majority right-handed population?
But he didn’t.
Tom out-paced him in the time trials shooting right handed.
I suspect mist right handed people, sans heavy training, would have a hard time manipulating a left hand bolt.
Ian being a lefty has had LOTS of practice running right hand rifles as he does.
I lay off the time difference (which isn’t really all that great…) more to Tom having more familiarity and time with the rifle. It is, I believe, his personal weapon.
I could be wrong, but Ian makes it look so much smoother than my own efforts with bolt actions. I have to wonder if there isn’t a better ergonomic solution to working the mechanisms than we’ve got; the Swiss preference for the “beer keg” being on the right side of the action has always mystified me. Seems like it’d be a better fit on the left, and further forward than it is.
As well, give these rifles a better, more emphatic pistol grip, and you’d be better able to maintain control of them with your primary hand while working the action with the non-primary.
All I’m saying is that I’m struck by how we seem to have arrived at this setup without much in the way of really thinking about alternatives. It’s like “Yeah, we did it this way with the first versions, let’s keep right on going…”
Were it me, I think I’d have at least tried out alternatives. Something halfway between the K-31 design and a pump-action rifle… Maybe put the action handle at 45 degrees up forward of the bolt on the left? About like the HK charger?
Ian definitely makes a left-hander using a “right-handed” bolt action look smooth as hell.
“(…)halfway between the K-31 design and a pump-action rifle(…)”
Not sure if it does meet that requirement, but if you wish barrel handle AND ability to cycle rapidly then use Izhmash 7-4.
A right handed guy who used a left handed bolt from his shooting infancy would probably be lots quicker.It’s like the matrix system: only awkward if you’re trying to convert
I agree that conversions between ergonomic systems are difficult, but… You’re still going to be exponentially faster with something that’s properly designed in the first damn place.
The fact that the “Old Contemptibles” of the British line infantry managed to achieve rates of fire that had the Germans convinced they were facing machine guns is a wonderful testament to the value of good training and motivated soldiers. The fact that they did it with Lee-Enfields is absolutely amazing; what might they have achieved with something that was actually designed to achieve those rates of fire more easily?
I think about it, and I want to say that something designed along the lines of the K-31, a straight-pull rifle, with the “off” hand manipulating the mechanism and the primary hand staying on a better pistol grip would give you much better results.
I honestly can’t come up with a good reason for the designs we have, other than “Legacy installed base…”
Did anyone ever do a left-handed K-31? Have we got video of Ian or someone else left-handed and skilled enough doing the drill with a K-31?
The more I think about this, the more I have to wonder. You don’t start to see really decent ergonomics on a service rifle until you hit the AR-10, and even that has some issues they’ve since improved upon.
I agree (today), but it started largely because of long, heavy, frontheavy muskets like this.
With an AR (or similarly weighted and balanced 2025 bolt gun), it’s easy to maintain a level firing grip while performing support tasks with the support hand – not so much here.
Ian may work the bolt smoothly, but watch him tilt the rifle up to rest more weight on his shoulder or chest (even more disruptive to aim than removing the firing hand) as rightie Tom holds the rifle relatively level, bridged between his shoulder and further-forward support hand.
https://helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/longforms/04LsFAaIc4qb0iVqoyVU1Ne/hero-image.fill.size_1200x900.v1619478388.jpg
Here you see left-handed Komsomol member Lyuba Makarova, one of the Russian Army’s top scoring snipers in the Great Patriotic War, demostrating her “two-shot burst” technique, which was the method which made her a top-scoring sniper.
Yes, she was left-handed, but still, given a decent rest for the fore-end, it’s still a perfectly valid technique with the standard bolt-action rifle, even in hunting or on a target range.
https://mashable.com/feature/soviet-women-snipers
Incidentally, this was the way Lee Harvey Oswald shot a 6.5mm Carcano bolt-action on a target range. And was very likely the way he was shooting it in Dealey Plaza on 22 Nov 1963.
So his rate of fire would have been more than adequate to account for all shots fired.
clear ether
eon
Eon:
I would like a bit more detail about Lee Harvey Oswald. I have seen no indication he was left handed.
See The Tom Clancy Companion by Clancy and Martin Harry Greenberg. Clancy, a “JFK Conspiracy” skeptic, quotes several sources as to LHO shooting rifle, pistol and shotgun left-handed from childhood. He only shot right-handed in the Marines because the rifle instructors required it on the M1 Garand, which is somewhat impractical to shoot “southpaw”.
Trivia note; One of his instructors was then Marine Gunnery Sergeant and later Hollywood producer Donald P. Bellisario, creator of Airwolf and Quantum Leap. The bit about Oswald’s shooting showed up in the two-part episode of the latter series about the JFK case.
cheers
eon
Hi Eon:
I am not familiar with that text. I would say that Oswald’s brother said he was right handed, and in the infamous back yard photo, Oswald is wearing his pistol on his right hip, as a right handed man would.
Makarova is said to have killed 75 Germans. I can list a dozen or so male Soviet snipers with 700-400 alleged kills. Makarova clearly was highly competent; not exactly among the leaders.A common cultural trap in our times: over celebrating the lovely cases. That said there was a Soviet woman sniper nicknamed Lady Death said to have taken down 309 Axis soldiers.
“(…)we think that this is the “right” way to design a bolt-action rifle for the majority right-handed population?”
I must warn you that this trial was done with ammunition specially crafted for this fire-arm. Keep in mind 1880s quality control would I presume allows greater differences in dimensions, especially that customer would push to make it as cheap as possible. Therefore greater force might be required to cycle action and in this case dominant arm is preferable.
A couple of interesting items.
1. The first inventor to put a spring loaded box magazine on a gun wasn’t James Paris Lee; it was Rollin White.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Rollin_White_patent.jpg
As can be seen from his (in)famous patent drawing for the “bored-through cylinder”, White incorporated a spring-loaded box magazine on the lower left side of the frame, to feed combustible cartridges into the chambers of the cylinder via a plunger that cycled along with the hammer.
A similar hammer-operated system was patented by William Mason in 1866, except it was on the right side and was intended to eject empty cartridges from Remington revolvers modified to take metallic cartridges. See Remington Army and Navy Revolvers 1861-1888 by Donald M. Ware (Univ NM Press 2007), pp 236-237.
While White apparently first invented this sort of magazine, he never mentioned it in his (dubious) patent application. Hence, his patent did not include it. As the old patent attorney’s saying goes, “You can describe your elephant, and even illustrate your elephant, but if you do not claim your elephant, it is not your elephant“.
2. Contrary to popular belief (mainly driven by Hollywood), the Marines at the U.S. Legation in Peking (Beijing) during the Boxer rebellion in 1899 were predominantly armed with Remington-Lee .45-70 rifles, not Model 1895 Winchester-Lee Navy 6mms or Model 1892 Krag-Jorgenson .30-40s.
Those several thousand Remington-Lees the Navy procured from 1880 on went mainly to the Marines, to replace their previous standard rifle (the Model 1871 Remington rolling block single-shot in .45-70) on a one-for-one basis, which was the only way they could get Congress to give them the money for new rifles at all. This was why they were procured in relatively small numbers, under three different model designations, stretched out over nearly two decades.
The U.S. Legation at Peking was of course protected by a Marine garrison, and their armory was stocked with Remington-Lee .45-70 bolt-actions and apparently even some Remington rolling-block .45-70 single-shots, not 6mm Lee Navies. Just as their machine gun company had four .45-70 caliber Gatling guns, not gas-operated Colt-Browning “Potato-Digger” 6mms.
Before all Hell broke loose there, Peking was considered a backwater post by the State Department. Secretary of State John Hay’s “Open Door Policy” toward China had only been published a month or so before the Rebellion broke out (or rather was ordered by the Dowager Empress), and most of Sate didn’t really think it was all that important.
In fact, the Open Door Policy aimed to regularize U.S. trade relations with China along the lines of British, French and etc. treaties; this may have at least partly lit the fuze on the Rebellion, as the Chinese government did not like the existing arrangements with the British and etc. to begin with.
So when the “Righteous Order of Harmonious Fists” made their attempts to storm the sections of the legation quarter’s walls manned by the United States Marines, it was .45-70 fire they faced, not 6mm or .30-40.
clear ether
eon
How about the pump-action Remington with the rotating bolt?
Left hand does the loading and the right hand and eye don’t move off the ‘weld’!
The most complicated part of shooting a bolt action rifle is cycling the bolt. Doing this with a person’s dominant hand is more likely for them to quickly become proficient with the maneuver.
So all of you can now try to learn how to write with your non-dominant hand and see how long to takes to become proficient.
Armies are about training the largest number of clueless recruits in the shortest amount of time. So why throw a spanner in the works trying to chase an ideal ergonomics and delay troop deployment when there is a war to fight?
Which would be why you’d design the action so as to make it as simple as possible… A back-and-forth movement. No need for primary hand dexterity, at all.
The usual issues are here: “Well, we’ve always done it that way, so…” and “We’ve got no time to make changes to what has always worked, even though that isn’t optimal…”
I don’t think anyone has ever sat down to really start from a totally fresh sheet, and design around actual human ergonomics, with most small arms. You look at it all, and it’s one instance of “That’s how we’ve always done it…” after another.
The pump-action shotgun is an example of what might make for a better overall ergonomic pattern. Primary hand dexterity used for the trigger, safety, and other elements, while the gross motor function is doing the heavy lifting of actuating the slide. Works fine, there… So, why would a service rifle present differently?
Pump action with a magazine would be interesting.
Are you trying to describe Remington Model 760, without using designation?
Very interesting that the Remington-Lee allowed hot swap of magazines. The eventual Lee-Enfield would not allow this. The LE magazine was pretty much hand fitted to a specific rifle and is rather fussy about being removed and reinserted.
Early “Long Lee” (Charger-Loading Lee-Enfield/ CLLE) models had the magazine chained to the rifle, much as the nipple protector had been on the Pattern 1853 .577 Enfield rifle-musket. In each case of course the purpose was to prevent loss of the component in the field.
This addition was deleted on the SMLE Rifle No.1 Mk I- along with the safety. When the safety “returned” on the No.1 MK I*, the magazine “tether” did not.
cheers
eon
I think a lot of the early weirdness with regards to the magazines and suchlike stemmed from the attitude that the troops might expend too much ammo.
This was a common prejudice of the times, and was probably due to people being “penny-wise and pound-foolish”, not recognizing that the infantry was basically an organic artillery piece, and that the more ammo they expended, the more likely the odds that they’d hit something.
I don’t think that people really pay attention to what the hell is going on, down at the shirtbutton-meets-dirt level. They don’t grasp how combat works, where the worms live. They pay attention to all the big-picture crap, like how glorious the cavalry looks on the charge, but they totally miss the prosaic and pedestrian facts of life, wherein the mass of fires from terrified line soldiers makes the victories happen.
It’s easy to pay attention to the costs, less easy to assess the things that those costs buy you, in tactical terms. Imagine Isandlwana where the quartermasters foresightedly handed out ammo like there was literally no tomorrow, and the British won the battle through firepower. Would the quartermaster types have been lauded, as they rightly should, or would they have been audited by Horse Guards and excoriated for “excessive ammunition loss”?
Likely the latter.
You have to achieve a certain Zen-like clarity of vision and thought to recognize the realities of combat. Go look at any portrayal of warfare, from anywhere in the world, during any historical period. Is there a single instance of anyone from that milieu describing things in purely rational terms, “getting it right”? Nope; we’re unable to really acknowledge the reality of things, relying on wishful thinking and the glibly romantic.
Which is why all the nitty-gritty dirty details are notably absent from historical accounts. We still don’t know if Romans marched in step with anything, because nobody bothered recording the details of such pedestrian (literally; word chosen for effect…) things. All the “glorious” crap? Yeah; that’s there, in spades.
If you wanted to know how a Roman legion really worked, down to the details of everyday life, you’d be very hard-pressed to figure that out from what is left of the records. Same-same with regards to how they actually fought battles down through the ages, mostly because the participants didn’t have a good picture themselves, and nobody who really did know how it all worked was the sort of person with the introspective self-awareness to write anything down.
This is one of the “greater annoyances” I had in the military; so much of what goes on where it really matters is “off the record” because the people that “know” are people who got it all unconsciously, through the osmotic transmission of tribal knowledge, and because it was never consciously gained, it’s never, ever been written down anywhere. And, none of the so-called “thinking elites” have ever deigned to lower themselves down to those levels so as to gain an appreciation for that sort of knowledge. Indeed, most of them blithely assume that none of those things matter, in their grand scheme of things.
Yet, as was pointed out to me innumerable times by both experience and some cognizant observers, good small units will pull the worst plans out of the shiite, and lousy ones will drag the Bestest Plan Evah(tm) down into the muck of failure.