The Great Remington 8: And Model 81 Autoloading Rifles

The Great Remington 8: And Model 81 Autoloading Rifles

Until recent times Remington's early autoloading rifles, the Browning-designed Model 8 (1906-1936) and Model 81 (1936-1950) have been almost completely overlooked by collectors and arms historians alike. Nevertheless, the Remington Autoloading Rifle was the world's first practical autoloading centerfire sporting rifle, and John Browning's final centerfire sporting rifle design. It served as a link between Browning's earlier manually-operated designs and his future output, which centered around semi-automatic pistols and fully-automatic machine rifle and machinegun mechanisms. When the Autoloading Rifle was introduced in 1906 (the designation "Model 8" did not actually appear until five years later, when it was first used in the 1911 catalog) it was a totally new concept in American sporting arms. It proved to be by far the best-selling and most popular autoloading sporting rifle in the world, and was kept in the Remington catalog for nearly half a century before being dropped from the link in 1950.