Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Hepburn

Sold my Sharps built in 1880 on Sunday at our gun show, and took this Hepburn as part trade. I really like Remington Hepburn rifles, and especially like guns in .32-20 like this Hepburn is.
It's a 28" #3 weight half octagon barrel, and in very god condition. All the original stock finish, lots of barrel bluing, and still some case colors too.

Nice. Good bore?

I've never messed with a Hepburn but now that a local buddy went whole-hog building a premo one (in .40-65, for BP silhouette) my interest is piqued. Any idea what Remington's overall intent was for the system at the outset? To replace the rolling block in the general lineup? It had to be more expensive to build than the RB. Are stories of weak extraction in the event of sticky brass true? Are the single triggers tunable?

The only one I know who might answer these questions is RIO7.
I forget what caliber his Hepburn is chambered for.
You might PM him.

I thought they were meant more as a target rifle than anything else, but could be a general "sporting" rifle.

My Hepburn is a 38-55 poison accurate, I have used it to win egg shoots many times & killed a few Pigs & Whitetails with it. Rio7

The bore is excellent. So far just done a little load workup using loads I found work well in my Rolling Blocks, and my Ballard all in the same cartridge. The Hepburn now has a MVA mid-range Soule sight with Hadley disc, and a Lyman combination front sight to help shoot accurately.

Lewis Hepburn's design was indeed aimed at target or competitive shooting. But Remington quickly decided to make the Hepburn rifles in every configuration available in other Remington models to increase sales. I have Hepburn Match B rifles, Long Range models, deluxe engraved model, and a few other Sporting versions.

Very nice Hepburn, and appears to have been well cared for!

I rarely take good pictures, but this is my long range Hepburn in .45-70 Govt. It is fitted for a full length scope that I sometimes put on instead of the long range sights.







My Match B with 34" half octagon barrel in .33-40 (bottom) and my Sporting Rifle with extra weight .40-70SS barrel, and DST. in the middle. Top is the engraved Hepburn before I had it checkered.

My Hepburn is the ultra rare cavalry carbine! Somebody for some reason put a modern round/octagon barrel on it, with a home made forend. But it's short little barrel. Nice for woods hunting, but odd looking. And she lively, both in handling and in recoil. lol

Then some other dumb @ss punched it out to .45-90 Then after shooting 500gr PP in it for a year or so, he said "Uh... I don't want to do this anymore." lol

Switched to 400gr greasers for a spell, then basically stopped shooting it. (and all my BPCR)

(oh foo, photo host is down at the moment)