So I ordered a Pattern 1837 Brunswick rifle form IMA a couple weeks ago. When it arrived, it looked rather like the pictures on their site - covered in filth, crystallized storage grease, rust and grime.

The worst thing I could immediately find is the gun came without a complete trigger guard. Or more accurately, 70% of the trigger guard is just missing - not included. The ad clearly states you get a trigger guard so I contacted IMA and they are sending a replacement - it was a mistake when the rifle was selected - no biggie. With these guns you sometimes will have missing parts which is why the sell parts rifles as well, but they do guarantee you get what's stated in the ad.

On the surface the gun otherwise looks restorable, or as much as I can tell without any cleaning at all. It is REALLY REALLY dirty - but that is to be expected with all these untouched guns.

Sadly, the buttplate is totally missing like on half of these and the Indian cast repro is way huge and will require some fitting.

The repro patchbox cover they sent me turned out to be defective, but these thing happen and IMA is sending a replacement. It looks like the manufacturer in India filed off a huge casting flaw on the door at the hinge so there's a huge gap. Most guys get nice one though and I'm sure the replacement will be fine.

Here it is as it arrived:

Here's the busted trigger guard. It's only held on by the front screw - the two rear screws are still there but no trigger guard around them. I'm glad the screws were still there and the new trigger guard is en-route.


The lock looks OK and cocks and fires (very sluggish prior to cleaning), though I don't want ot try it much without de-gunking it:


This seems to be the worst stock damage inside the buttplate inletting. Looks like someone pried off the buttplate and broke out some wood. The break is clean and it looks really recent??? Like within the last few years? This should be an easy repair for when I'm inletting the buttplate.


Some cracking in the patch box inletting:


There looks like maybe some cracking around the escutcheon, but hard to gauge without cleaning. Nothing major is evident though:
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