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The Danish RB rifle that most people see is the 67/96. These were all Danish made and were the only rifles adapted to the new smokeless cartridge Denmark adopted in 1896. All of the 67/96 rifles received a new rear sight and the new cartridge was slightly longer than the original rimfire cartridge.
Generally speaking, all Danish-made rifles were converted to the smokeless, centerfire round and all Remington-made rifles were not...

There are two blackpowder-only versions, the 67/97 and a civilian type. Based on the sight, this is one of the blackpowder only versions...which were never fitted with the new sight. The government issued blackpowder rifle was the 67/97, they were issued to Danish Coast Artillery units and used a blackpowder version of the new smokeless cartridge. These did not get the new sight but did have their chambers deepened. They were marked with a small "97" on the top of the barrel between the receiver and the rear sight.

The lowest class of Danish rifle was sold to civilians as early as 1900. These are also centerfire but used an exact copy of the rimfire cartridge made in centerfire. The newer Danish ammunition (smokeless and black for the Coast Artillery) will not chamber in these rifles because it was made slightly longer than the original cartridge. During WWI, 6,000 rimfire rifles, otherwise thought unfit for conversion to the higher pressure cartridges, were converted to the civilian centerfire round by the government as an emergency measure.

Also, during the German occupation, the breechblocks were removed from all of the rifles while they were in storage. They were replaced after the war and all of them are "mismatched." The breechblock was the only part changed in the lowest grade of centerfire conversion so this could also be a rimfire rifle that only acquired a centerfire breechblock in 1947!

So... this was a quite rare, unaltered earlier version of the Danish rifle. It appears that only a handful of these were ever imported. Remington actually made more Danish rifles than Denmark did but about 99% of the rifles that were imported were the 67/96 Danish-made examples.

I don't know how using a .45-70 case fits into this equation because I don't have the length information at hand, but the slam-dunk giveaway that this was NOT one of the rifles rebuilt for the higher pressure ammunition is the rear sight...which is the seldom seen original version. This was almost certainly one of the original Remington-made rifles, all of which were delivered before October of 1868.

And... all of this is from George Layman's upcoming all new work on the military RB. It won't be out until mid-January, but I'm the editor so I have my own "tool-room sample"!

Joe Puleo