Most of today's arms enthusiasts and collectors are familiar with the service rifles used by the United States military over the past two centuries. Such arms as the .45-70 Gov't "Trapdoor" Springfield, .30-40 Krag-Jorgensen, Model 1903 Springfield, M1 Garand, M14 and M16 are well known and have been the subjects of numerous books and articles. Part of the reason for the familiarity is because our armed forces used most for a rather lengthy time period. For example, the U.S. military used the M1903 Springfield to one extent or another for more than 40 years. Likewise, the M16 (and variants) has also been in use for more than four decades and is still going strong. In addition to being in service for years, many of these rifles were manufactured and, in some cases such as the M1 and M16, produced well into the millions. On the other hand, there were some service rifles produced in very limited numbers and were only utilized by our armed forces for a brief period of time.

One of the least known, but quite interesting, rifles of this type is the Remington-Keene U.S. Navy rifle. The rifle was the invention of New Jersey arms designer John W. Keene. Keene had been working on his bolt-action repeating rifle since the early 1870s and eventually received nine separate patents pertaining to the design. The rifle's turning bolt operated in more or less the typical fashion. The action was unlocked by raising the bolt upward, and the empty case was extracted and ejected by pulling the bolt to the rear. As the bolt was almost fully retracted, the "magazine elevator" (as it was called by the inventor) raised a fresh cartridge from the tubular magazine into position in the breech so it could be chambered when the bolt was pushed forward. Manipulation of the bolt also automatically cocked the cocking piece, which was fashioned in the shape of an external hammer. It could be lowered to "half cock" to function as a safety. The "hammer" was one of the more recognizable components of the design and was viewed as a safety feature, as soldiers unfamiliar with repeating bolt-action rifles of the era sometimes had trouble ascertaining if a rifle was cocked. With the Keene rifle's external hammer-shaped cocking piece, one could easily observe its position to determine if the rifle was fully cocked and ready to fire.

The rifle's tubular magazine was under the barrel and was encased in-and protected by-the stock's fore-end. The location of the magazine required that the cleaning rod be offset to the left side of the fore-end. As with most of the other bolt-action military repeating rifles of the time, the Keene was fitted with a magazine cut-off to permit it to function as a single-shot, with the contents of the magazine held in reserve for "emergency" use.

Keene's rifle came to the attention of the Remington Arms Co. as the firm was seeking a bolt-action repeater that might be acceptable to an Ordnance Department "Magazine Gun Board" that was convened in 1878. An agreement was reached for the company to fabricate several prototype Keene rifles for submission to the Board. Remington had previously devoted most of its efforts and capital to its popular line of "rolling block" rifles, and it did not have a satisfactory bolt-action repeating design to compete with the Winchester lever-action and other repeating arms in the Ordnance Department testing. Although the "Remington-Keene," as it came to be known, was rejected by the 1878 Ordnance Board in favor of the bolt-action Hotchkiss, the rifle performed well enough to justify the faith that Remington had in the design. The company subsequently produced the Remington-Keene in several configurations for the civilian market, including carbine and sporting rifle variants.

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