This Forgotten Weapons video examines an experimental Remington-Keene rifle designed to prevent dangerous magazine detonations. The rifle features a unique external tube with spacer disks manually loaded between cartridges in the tubular magazine. While innovative, the system was complex and ultimately unnecessary as magazine detonations were rare and box magazines became the standard solution.
The Remington-Keene rifle, developed by John W. Keene and manufactured by Remington, was a tube-fed, bolt-action rifle chambered in .45-70 Government. Despite competing in the 1878 US military trials and seeing limited adoption by the Navy, it was commercially released in 1880. Its design features a unique bolt disassembly via a left-hand thread screw and a bottom-loading gate with an elevator mechanism.
The Remington-Keene Repeating Carbine, produced by Remington from 1880, was an early American bolt-action rifle featuring a tubular magazine and a distinctive hammer-shaped cocking piece. Despite its innovative design, including a cartridge elevator, it lost out to competitors in military trials, with only about 5,000 units manufactured. While not widely adopted by the US military, some saw limited service with the US Navy and the Department of the Interior for Indian agents, making examples rare today.
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