POTD: Not a Remington – Whitney-Laidley Style I Rolling Block

Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a rolling block that did not come out of Ilion. This is a Whitney-Laidley Style I military rifle in 43 Spanish.

The rolling block was the export success of the 1870s. Remington moved them by the hundreds of thousands to governments all over the world, and Eli Whitney Jr. wanted in on that trade. In 1870 he bought the manufacturing rights to a rolling block patent issued in 1866 to Theodore Laidley and Charles Emery, then filed a run of his own improvement patents on top of it. That gave Whitneyville Armory a rifle close enough to compete with the Remington No. 1 and far enough from it to sell.

Laidley is worth knowing about. He was an Army ordnance officer who served on the postwar boards testing breechloaders, so he had watched nearly every action design in the country get run through trials before he patented one of his own.

Whitney turned out something like 30,000 of these in military configuration, with most going to contracts in Central and South America. The 43 Spanish chambering tells you where this one was pointed. Long 35 inch barrel, full military stock with a ramrod, and the same working principle as the Remington: hammer and breechblock pivot on separate pins, and the hammer rolls in behind the block to lock it shut at the moment of firing. Strong, simple, and cheap to build in volume.

Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!

“Excellent Whitney-Laidley Style I Rolling Block Military Rifle.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4097/53/excellent-whitneylaidley-style-i-rolling-block-military-rifle. Accessed 30 July 2026.

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