Winchester and John Moses Browning spilt over what would become the Remington Model 8, and modern gunmaking was never the same.

Initially called the Remington Autoloading Rifle, the gun that would become the company’s Model 8 was the first semi-automatic rifle offered to American hunters and was a commercial success. Remington changed the rifle’s name to the Model 8 in 1911 and re-named it again in 1936 as the Model 81 Woodsmaster. More than 167,000 were made before production ended in 1950. That includes the European version, the Fabrique Nationale Model 1900 carbine, though fewer than 5,000 of the variant were produced.

The Remington Model 8 came in several grades, from basic to premier. This factory engraved Model 8 is the premier grade with scroll engraving across the receiver and breech and a gold inlaid deer head on the left side and a gold inlaid bear and scroll engraving on the safety on the right. The fore end and stock are checkered.

Before the Remington Model 8: Browning Gets Started

John Moses Browning showed his genius with a single shot high wall rifle that caught the attention of Winchester president Thomas Bennett who snapped up the patent for what would be the company’s Model 1885. Ned Roberts, who created the .257 Roberts cartridge, called it “The most reliable strongest and altogether best single-shot rifle ever produced.”

Browning and Winchester followed that up with the Model 1886. The gun utilized twin vertical locking lugs that sealed the breech bolt against the chamber that made it capable of taking more powerful and longer cartridges like the .45-70.

Author and outdoorsman Zane Grey described the Winchester Model 1895 chambered in .30-06 as “the finest rifle ever built.” Grey’s exquisitely engraved 1895 was sold by Rock Island Auction in May 2023 for $440,625.

Now, the gun designer and Winchester were on a roll with the Model 1894 and 1895 rifles, the lever action 1887/1901 shotgun, 1890 slide action rifle and the classic Model 1893/1897 slide action shotgun. Having completed a machine gun design, Browning turned his keen mind to a self-loading pistol by the mid-1890s. His design would be the first pistol with a slide.

Colt bought the patent but showed little interest in manufacturing it. A chance meeting with a Fabrique Nationale representative took Browning to Belgium where the company agreed to manufacture the pistol for the international market and pay a royalty. In 11 years, FN produced about 700,000 of its Model 1900 pocket pistols. Seeing FN’s success with the blowback pistol in a little over a year, Colt put the Model 1903 Hammerless into production, and by 1945 more than half a million had been produced.

This pre-World War 2 factory engraved and gold inlaid Belgian Browning 16 gauge Auto-5 was recently offered in Rock Island Auction’s May Premier Auction.

Browning had been working on designs for a self-loading rifle and self-loading shotgun, both using the long recoil operating system, and received patents for them nine months apart in 1900. Shotgun design in hand, he traveled east from his home in Utah to meet with Bennett in Connecticut. Bennett proved cool on the design. He called the blocky shotgun “the ugliest gun I’ve ever seen.” Browning wouldn’t return to Winchester until the midst of World War 1 with the BAR, after Bennett had retired from the company.

He arranged a meeting with Remington but company president Marcellus Hartley died of a heart attack shortly before the meeting. Browning turned to his friends at FN who agreed to make the shotgun that would be known as the massively popular Auto-5. Facing tariffs in 1904, FN and Remington agreed the American company could make the auto-loading shotgun in the United States as the Model 11.

This Remington Model 8 was manufactured in 1931 and was engraved and gold inlaid by John A. Gough with panel scenes of a deer on top of the receiver, two deer with a bear on the right and a mountain lion on the left.

Remington Model 8

The race for commercially viable semi-automatic rifles was on. While John M. Browning’s long-recoil patents dated back to 1900, Winchester was first to the production line making T.C. Johnson’s Model 1903 in .22 Winchester Automatic. Two years later Winchester released the “upscaled” Model 1905 in .32 SL and .35 SL, but both self-loading rounds were often inadequate for hunting deer.

Meanwhile, Browning’s patents were still finding their feet. He had sold the patent to Remington, with foreign manufacture to be handled by FN. The foreign versions didn’t start production until 1910 and were mostly unsuccessful. Remington, however, saw an opportunity. Their competition at Winchester had dropped the ball pushing an underpowered semi-auto to the commercial market. In contrast, Remington planned to introduce their “Autoloading Rifle” in calibers not only capable of taking deer, but that went toe-to-toe with the popular .30-30 cartridge.

They introduced the new model in 1906 in .25, .30, .32, and .35 calibers and sales were solid. Remington rechristened it the Model 8 in 1911 and would make 80,000 over the next 25 years. In advertising, Remington often showed a hunter facing a charging game animal like a brown bear or mountain lion to show it was “quick as lightning” and the .35 caliber rifle could take on most anything.

Before designated the Remington Model 8, the company simply called it the Autoloading Rifle and advertised it as being able to take down any type of big game animals.

Remington offered to send an Autoloading Rifle – it hadn’t been re-named the Model 8 yet – to President Theodore Roosevelt in hopes it would be taken on the 1909-1910 African safari sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. The gun wasn’t listed among the firearms inventory for the safari despite news articles reporting “Chief among the guns will be the death-dealing automatic Remington 35-caliber, which can stop anything from a tiger to an elephant.” Outdoorsman Barton Hepburn wrote extensively about his 1913 African hunt with the Remington, and taking crocodile, Cape buffalo, Eland and lion in his book “The Story of an Outing.”

Production of the Model 8 ended in 1936 at the height of the Great Depression. During production, the rifle was offered in five grades: standard, special, peerless, expert and premier. Premier offered checkering and engraved with game scenes on the sides of the receiver surrounded by scrolling.

FN 1900 Carbine, the European Remington Model 8

FN officially named its rifle the Browning Patent Modele 1900 but didn’t put it into production until 1910. The gun failed to find much interest outside the United States because of its revolutionary operating system and its price tag.

The Belgian company promoted its rifle as faster than bolt actions, superior accuracy and a lower price than a double rifle. The FN catalog even touted less recoil because of the operating system. “In addition the gas pressure is partially employed to operate the automatic mechanism, there is a substantial reduction in recoil and therefore much less fatigue to the hunter who is able to keep his gun at ready for immediate follow-up shots.”

This exhibition quality FN 1900 carbine has gold inlaid borders and leafy scrolling on the frame, safety, trigger guard and magazine, with checkered walnut stock and fore end. This scarce rifle sold for $4,888 in May 2011 at Rock Island Auction Company.

Remington Model 8 and Early Aerial Warfare

Barely rechristened as the Model 8, the rifle performed in an early trial of shooting from an airplane in 1911. A sharpshooter first tried a Springfield Model 1903 bolt action rifle but found it cumbersome to work. The shooter, Lt. Jacob Fickel tried again with a Remington. On May 11 in front of a crowd of 10,000 near Bridgeport, Conn., Fickel, sitting on the wing of a Curtiss bi-plane flying at 60 mph, scored three consecutive hits to a 6 x 12 target. Fickel said he considered the semi-automatic rifle “the only practical gun for use under such conditions.”

The Model 8 may or may not have been used by the French in early World War 1 aerial combat. Jacque Balsan, who organized the Lafayette Escadrille, inquired about getting the Model 8 for pilots and observers. There is no record of any Remington rifles going to the French, but they may have acquired 100 of the FN Model 1900 carbines. C&Rsenal’s video about the Model 8 recounts one recorded incident between French and German aircraft shooting at each other with rifles. The French observer was able to shoot his German opposite with the FN Model 1900 and possibly damaged the German plane.

The photo of this Remington Model 8 shows the gun’s profile with its five-round magazine and the sizable safety lever and the charging bolt on the right side. It is chambered in .30 Remington.

Remington Model 8 for Police Use

After World War 1, criminals were able to get their hands on heavier firepower like the Thompson submachine gun. To combat these better armed aggressors, police of the time had to be able to match them shot for shot. A company out of St. Joseph, Mo., Peace Officer Equipment Company, did just that.

The company, owned by Newton S. Hillyard, started converting the Remington Model 8 from its five-round internal magazine to being able to take a 15-round single stack detachable magazine. The curved steel magazine received a patent in October 1934.

Famously, the 1934 posse that ambushed Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow had at least one Model 8 rifle, carried by legendary Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. Hamer apparently liked the rifle since he killed two other criminals in shootouts with it. In a 1921 shootout with Rafael Lopez along the Rio Grande border, Hamer was grazed in the face before he shot Lopez in the heart with his Remington.

This Remington Model 8 has a Peace Officer Equipment Company marked magazine and also a wider beavertail forearm that was a conversion from the hunting rifle’s original Schnabel forearm. This rifle sold for $8,000 in RIAC’s May 2021 Premier Auction.

Remington Model 8 Becomes Model 81 Woodsmaster

Remington retired the Model 8 in 1936, made some minor refinements and introduced it as the Model 81 Woodsmaster the same year. The gun now had a pistol-grip stock and heftier fore end. It was offered in .30, .32 and .35 calibers. The company chambered it in .300 Savage starting in 1940. It was still offered in five different grades from the basic standard grade to the fancy checkering and engraving of the premier grade. Remington produced more than 55,000 of the Model 81 Woodsmaster between 1936 and 1950.

The Model 81 Woodsmaster was the successor to the Remington Model 8. This rifle is chambered in .30 Remington.

Remington Model 8 for Sale

The fascinating Remington Model 8 is part of the lineage of John Moses Browning and came about at a time when aerial warfare was in its experimental infancy and police needed it to fend off well-armed outlaws. The early semi-automatic rifle proved to be a reliable hunting partner in the field and forest and can be found regularly in Rock Island Auction Company sales.

Sources:

The Great Model 8 & 81

History of WW1 Primer 108: U.S. Remington Model 8 Documentary, C&Rsenal