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I inherited an 1873 Remington rolling block rifle from my grandfather. It is a #1 sporter, not the usual converted military. It was originally a .38 rimfire. When I got it, it was trashed pretty thoroughly. It had been in a fire and the forearm was missing, and the butt stock scorched. Somebody had started to refinish the metal by using steel wool to remove any traces of finish on the metal. The bore looked like the inside of a sewer pipe.
As bad as it was, I figured there was no harm in doing a full restoration, so I hired Jim Dubell at Delta Gun Shop to restore it. To make a long story a bit shorter, after a full year and around $2000 I have a beautiful, like new 1873 rifle. We decided on relining the barrel to preserve the tapered octagon 30" barrel, and I wanted to stay with .38 caliber, so it was chambered for .357 magnum. The only drawback to this is that the recoil from the magnum with the 30" barrel caused the original semi-buckhorn rear sights to shift about every 5 shots.
To solve this problem I installed a Marble's mid-range tang sight and just tried it out today. It's perfect. I'm now shooting 2" groups with this setup and I'm really happy. [Photos added below!]
As bad as it was, I figured there was no harm in doing a full restoration, so I hired Jim Dubell at Delta Gun Shop to restore it. To make a long story a bit shorter, after a full year and around $2000 I have a beautiful, like new 1873 rifle. We decided on relining the barrel to preserve the tapered octagon 30" barrel, and I wanted to stay with .38 caliber, so it was chambered for .357 magnum. The only drawback to this is that the recoil from the magnum with the 30" barrel caused the original semi-buckhorn rear sights to shift about every 5 shots.
To solve this problem I installed a Marble's mid-range tang sight and just tried it out today. It's perfect. I'm now shooting 2" groups with this setup and I'm really happy. [Photos added below!]
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