Yesterday, a guy walked into the gun store where I work with a Snider Rifled Musket, wanting to sell it or trade it towards an AR-15. I'm kind of the antique guru in the store, so the guy was referred to me.

I looked at the gun, and the first thing I noticed was that the stock felt a bit sticky. Almost as if the linseed oilicon finish had not dried properly. The stock didn't show any signs of having been recently refinished, however. But the stickiness bothered me. I asked the guy where he had gotten it, and he told me that a friend had brought it back from Afganistan.

The gun was in fairly nice condition. No bluing left on it, but no signs of abuse.... just a well-used old gun. Lots of proofmarks with the "VR" on them, and a barrel marked "steel".

The action didn't work very well, however, and the inletting around the lockplate was not as good as one would expect.

All these things got me really suspicious, so I took the lock off, and found that the inletting had all been done by hand, and that the internal lock parts were all rather crudely hand made.

So what I've got here is a Khyber Pass rifle. The guy who brought it in told me that he had owned it for about 4 years, and I'm certain that it was probably made not more than a few years prior to that. From what I understand, there are literally hundreds of small shops making and selling Snyders, Martinis, Enfield Number 1s, and all sorts of pistols....all made by hand by a half-dozen or so workers in each shop. I remember seeing a No.1 "Enfield" at a gun show several years ago that was dated 1915, but had a "VR" proofmark on it. The VR stands for "Victoria Regina", and of course Queen Victoria died in 1899 (I think), well before the date marked on the No. 1

Anybody ever run in to one of these things? I'm trying to get a handle on what it might be worth. If it were a real Snyder, I figure it would probably be worth $500 or so. But since it's a Khyber Pass fake, I don't think it could be worth any more than half of that.

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