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Apparently the Remington Lee was available in .405 Winchester. 'Rifles of the World' by John Walter, has an entry on page 245, stating that the Remington Lee rifle was made available in .405 Winchester in 1904.

Mind you, John Walter in 'Rifles of the World', states that the Lee Speed was chambered in, and I quote, "7x57, .303, 8x51R, 32-40 Winchester or .375 Flanged Nitro Express (9.5x57)" and, quite obviously, this list has some notable problems which bring doubt on the veracity of some of the information in this book.

Could it be that somewhere, someone has confused the Remington Lee with the Lee Speed and that is where the idea that the Lee Speed was available in .405 came from?

Mike Venturino, in his book "Shooting Lever Action Rifles of the Old West", claims that the Remington Keene rifle was chambered for the .405. However, I think that this is another case of mistaken identity because I can find no other reference to this rifle and calibre and the Remington Keene was only made between 1880 and 1886, for a total of 5,000 firearms, and the .405 didn't come into existence till 1904! The Remington Keene was available in .40/60 and was advertised as available in .40 and .45 calibres, so maybe the reference to .40 calibre caused this mistake. Alternatively, perhaps Mike Venturino simply meant to say Remington Lee, and not Remington Keene, and that this error somehow managed to pass through the proof readying for this book.

I mention this because it shows how easy it is to confuse some of these old rifles, particularly as the amount of hard written data, that has survived for some of them, is very, very small.

Of course, there is always the chance that there are one or two examples of these old rifles, in odd calibres like the .405, but that they are the result of custom or backyard gunsmithing, not factory chamberings, and this has created the confusion I am trying to resolve. For example, I have seen an "Enfield" (presumably a P14) for sale in .405 on the internet and I have heard (and I stress 'heard') of other rifles, such as the Krag, in this calibre, too.

But I am looking for evidence of factory chamberings.

Edited by BwanaBob (10/02/15 01:38 PM)

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