Rolling blocks

Remington built the large action (called it the Number 1 IIRC) up until the middle of WWI at least. The French bought a pile of them in 8mm Lebel in order to release more modern rifles for combat duty. They were available and they were cheap.

No-one really KNOWS how many Rolling Blocks were built or where they all went. James Paris Lee (he of the world-famed and ne plus ultra LEE rifle) worked for Remington as a salesman, unloaded truly ungodly numbers of the critters in China. None of the other gun companies could deal with China at that time but Lee was doing fine. When asked the secret of his success, he quipped that, with a name like "Jimmy Lee", the Chinese likely felt that he was related to them! At that time there were Chinese-owned groceries and restaurants and hand laundries all over North America.... and it seemed (due to the limited number of Chinese surnames and the limitations of the various transliteration systems, none of which was really designed for a tonal language).... that about half of these were owned by someone named Jimmy Lee!

Just wanted to pass that along.

The Chinese contribution to the spread and the success of North American civilisation has been very much ignored. As an example, I had dinner last pension day in a place which has been continuously owned and operated by Chinese families for AT LEAST 106 years and possibly more. Have to get into the tax records to find farther......
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now that I've taken the plunge,I'm really looking forward to actually getting it in my hands.Anthony rates the barrel as ''very good bore'' and ''overall very good condition''.The stock looks like it could do with stripping and refinishing-maybe Tru Oil,and the metal work looks good-maybe a rub down with fine steel wool and oil,and it should come up very nicely.I've bought a few old Husqvarnas from Tradeex and a pleasant few hours spent on refinishing has paid off.

next will be fireforming the 8x56r Privi brass-haven't done that before,but it doesn't look hard,light loads , cw filler and sealed with wax I believe.
 
Be careful with your pressures if you bought 8x56R brass for an 8x58R rifle. They are NOT the same.

For one thing, your ammo will be about .080" shorter than what the rifle is chambered for. This means seating bullets 'way OUT to compensate if you want any accuracy.

Likely you can get away with it, the difference at the base being only .010". Ed's famous O-ring trick will help a LOT on fireforming with this much difference in base diameters.

There is ALSO a difference in the RIM diameters, the 8x58R rim being wider. This means that you might have extraction problems, ESPECIALLY if your bass is not expanded concentrically to the chamber. Learn Ed's O-ring trick and USE IT: save yourself a mort of troubles.
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I have never fireformed brass-what is ''Ed's' 'O-ring'' trick?

I am relying totally on what information I can get from rolling block websites and U-Tube
 
Small diameter O ring around the rim of the cartridge, to hold it against the breech face when it is fired.

Allows the shoulder to be formed where it is supposed to be, rather than too short, as it would be if the firing pin was allowed to push the cartridge forward when it strikes.
Also supposed to stop or reduce case stretching from an unsupported head.

Never done it, so cannot tell you what size to use, but I'd count on it not needing much of an O ring to take up the space available.

Cheers
Trev
 
all my information is obtained off the web-so correct me if I'm wrong-but I gather to fire form a case you use a low load, filler to top up the case and then use a wad and glue or wax to hold it-then fire the shell.
 
I just use a light load for fire-forming unless the change is truly radical.

Works fine for blowing out shoulders, that kind of thing.

For straightening things right out, as in forming brass for my .410 Musket from .303 brass, I anneal the forward half of the case first, then go in stages, open out the case mouth with an expander ball until it flares ALMOST enough to fill the chamber, put in a light charge of Unique (8 or 10 grains), a wad made of toilet paper and a single 000 Buck ball (.360").... and go and shoot it off. Once the cases have expanded, you can start loading for bear or whatever. But you don't have much of this problem with your conversion; you are converting an 8mm to an 8mm, so the only real "issue" you have is shoulder placement. Just a light load should do.

As to Ed's famous O-rings, you use them to centralize the case in the chamber and to push the round back against your bolt-face. It can be used to assure CONCENTRIC case expansion ad it also is wonderful if you aren't sure about the headspace. With Rimmed cartridges, the O-ring holds the case back onto the bolt-face (or breechblock-face in your case) and reduces headspce to an effective ZERO. You end up with perfectly fireformed brass that fits YOUR rifle.

You can get rubbers which are satisfactory for the job if you go to your local Dollar Store or equivalent and just get a little blister-pack of those rubbers that girls use to tie-off braids and pony-tails. They work fine and they are 100 in a box for $1. That's what I am using.

Hope this helps.
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Correct,I am just fireforming the shoulder-so do I go ahead and load the cartridge with a light load and regular bullet-or do I fire it blank?
 
Light load, regular bullet should do the job. Loads near the bottom of the scale work well for this; top loads are too violent, push the brass out too fast and split things.

And it gives you a bit of target practice all at the same time.

MOST IMPORTANT POINT OF ALL: be sure to have fun!
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I ordered some 175 gr jacketed bullets from Tradeex so thats what I'll be starting of shooting with .Right now I only have 3031 and 4064 powder[I reload for my 9.3x57]I see Unique mentioned for using in the 8x58r

I have no intention of pushing this old rifle to the limits-for one I'm not experianced enough,and two,I'm more interested in a nice accurate fun load than wringing out maximum velocity.At some point I'd like to try using cast bullets
 
The stock disks sometimes were re-labelled by the civilian shooting associations, after the military sold off the rifles.

The "21" is normally referring to Kalmar administrative district.
21 = Kalmar Regemente, meaning it's in southeast Sweden. Could've been my greatgrampa's rifle !! :D

The military's disk labelling system doesn't seem to have been 100% standardized, and I have yet to find any centralized reference - although I can't say I've really looked very hard.

A guy could probably spend half his time just researching and annotating the stock disks - what a hobby!

smellie said:
21st Infantry Regiment.

Company B.

Rack number 8.

Further deponent sayeth not.

Buffdog is the guy to ask, locally.
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Click to expand...
 
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