Snider Enfield

[Banana_hands]

A coworker of mine inherited some rifles after his brother passed away. He's looking to sell a couple, one of which I'm interested in purchasing depending on how good of a deal it is.
It's a 1872 Snider Enfiled. Neither he nor I know very much about the rifle. Its the slighty shorter two band version. I've searched for comparable examples for sale with little luck. Any thoughts on what I should pay for this rifle?
It's in decent shape but obviously used

[Airman Skitters]

$350-$450 would be a good range, perhaps up to five, depending upon the bore quality.

It has a bayonet lug on the right side of the barrel, correct?

Fun thing about this gun is, you can actually make fairly cheap and accurate ammo for them with 24g Plastic Shotshell hulls and .577 Minie rounds. Loading brass for them is awfully expensive, though.

My father and I have a 3 band rifle that was made in Nepal, we're going to try the Shotshell ammo eventually.

[rm1911]

oh no a british assault rifle

here's a little backstory on them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snider-Enfield

ammo would be near impossible to find and I believe it would also be black powder.

as a shooter, forget about it. as a wall hanger, it's awesome. they had a short service life, and it wouldn't have seen action in the colonial battles like omdurman or rorke's drift. it is really a transitional piece between the musket and the breech loading smokeless martini-lee. it looks to be in decent shape considering it's probably 150 years old.

gonna be hard to determine a price. how much do you want a wall hanger, albeit a really cool one??

[steamerjames]

Buy it, the short,32" rifle is the only one(unless you can find a musketoon) that shoots good.That's because it has a twist of 1-48", regular long rifles are 1-78".The long rifles will not hit the broadside of a barn as a result.Bedford Forrest mounted troops were armed with the muzzle loading musketoon and outshot all union troops against them.The Snider is just a Breech loading conversion of a British civil war era rifle.I am not sure from your picture if its a Mark II or Mark III.The Mark III's are all steel,The Mark II's have iron barrels.PS You do have a Mark III.

[Paulie Lugnuts]

Here's a pic of ours after my son, Airman Skitters, cleaned off all the yak fat.

[Banana_hands]

Thanks for all the info. I'm not much for wall hangers. I do own several C&R rifles but I shoot them all regularly (other than my type 44 Arisaka due to scarcity of ammo). I was mostly interested in this one for investment purposes. It doesn't sound like I'd be getting much of a deal.

Paulie and Skitters, beautiful rifle!

[Airman Skitters]

Thanks for all the info. I'm not much for wall hangers. I do own several C&R rifles but I shoot them all regularly (other than my type 44 Arisaka due to scarcity of ammo). I was mostly interested in this one for investment purposes. It doesn't sound like I'd be getting much of a deal.

Paulie and Skitters, beautiful rifle!

To honest with you, that Rifle could be worth alot more. Quite possibly up into the six or seven hundred range, I think I may have undervalued it there... Most Sniders are up for around a Grand on Gunbrokers. They tend to sell around 600-700ish, though, it seems.

And that Rifle is quite capable of being fired safely. There are lots of folks who have and shoot Sniders. You'd have to really examine it, probably have a gunsmith take a look, but with the right BP loads (I think around 60gr 2F) it shouldn't be any hassle to shoot. Don't be so quick to call in a wall-hanger.

If you want to get more info on the gun and see what options you might have for shooting the old piece, have a look Here. This seems to be the go-to place for Snider info!

[Banana_hands]

Thanks for the link! I have some reading to do.

[thull001]

Snider Enfield Reloading

Banana Hands,

My friend owns a Snider Mark II that he found at his grandfather's house. We have done an awful lot of research on reloading the 577 Snider cartridge and it is actually perfectly feasible to load them for less than a $1 a round with the right materials and equipment. 24 Gauge brass shotshells (Midway USA has them) can be formed into 577 Snider brass. A guy on youtube who's really into these rifles (goes by the moniker Murphy's Muskets) explains how to do it. If you already have reloading equipment set up could be worth looking into assuming yours is safe to fire.

In fact it's even possible to make safe smokeless powder rounds for these rifles. I know this because I purchased a box of Snider rounds from someone (made by Dominion circa 1920s) which said right on the box they were smokeless powder rounds with non-mercuric primers. Early editions of Cartridges of the World list the specs for these smokeless loads.

We've fired about 30 rounds of original ammo out of my friends Mark II with no issues, including the smokeless rounds. I recently purchased a Nepalese P-64 Snider which I intend to restore and shoot since it has a very nice barrel and bore. We live in Canada, and the only way you can find ammo for them is at gun shows, where they go for about $10 a cartridge! So reloading for them is going to be essential. If you want any more info I'm happy to give you my email address...

[knucklehead0202]

yeah, ammo isn't as big a deal as you'd think. if you don't want to hassle with forming your own brass, there's a guy on gunboards that sells it ready to load. he also does 577/450 brass too. if you can get a deal on it i'd definitely buy it, and shoot it. that's a cool piece of history there.

[bruceflinch]

$100.

[Emdawg]

It fires .577 Snider. Midway sells the brass for it.

Loading is not a big deal. Probably cheaper to load for the Snider than it's successor, the Martini-Henry.

[Dolk]

Make your own rounds.

http://www.thedolk.com/Snider/reloadingsnider.html

[knucklehead0202]

here ya go. http://forums.gunboards.com/showthre...7-Snider-Cases

[Dolk]

Most fun part is casting the lead.



I wish I could sell the bullets cheaply, but I was told you have to have a FFL license to make and sell ammo components. I don't know if that is true or not, but I do give away "fishing weights" if you live in the Bay Area!

Get yourself some of those brass casings (or make your own). It's almost as fun as shooting them.

There is dozens of ways to load them, and the article I setup the link to is only one of 100's of ways and possible loads. My friends over on the British Military rifles forums helped me get the "best for me" load that I use, but it was tough because they all think their load is the "best way"!