"You'll shoot your eye out kid"

The Battle of Loigny -  1879, Charles Castellani

The following link takes you to the M1868 Papal States Remington Infantry Rifle. They were manufactured under license by two armories in England and Belgium and used  by Papal Zouaves(I'll be covering them in a later post) and the Corps of Gendarmerie. The Papal Zouaves were an international light infantry force established to fight for the Holy Father during the unification conflicts on the 19th century Italian peninsula.

Here are pics of the Gendarmerie version.

Now, this model of rifle is just one of many used by the many forces that have and still protect the Church. What makes this rifle distinctive and gives it a higher interest factor is that they are stamped with the Papal Arms on the receiver and stock.