Snider Enfields and U.S. service

[Ridolpho]

I beg to disagree with you Ridolpho. Please read this thread, especially the comments by Bill Curtis, who is truly expert on 19th. c. British firearms.

Untouched Snider III - British Militaria Forums

I have learnt over the years that in such matters it is advisable to avoid using extreme words like "always" or "never".

---------- Post added at 08:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:53 PM ----------

Lawrence - as you can see from the thread linked above, if you remove the barrelled action from the stock, you will probably find a lot of informative stamps on the barrel and shoe of your rifle

Patrick: If you read that thread right through to the end you will see opinions expressed that that barreled action may have been dropped into another stock, possibly with it's original lock. You will also see that I said in my post that "to my knowledge" all Mk III...were new manufacture. Anything is possible but I am a specialized Snider collector and, in my research, haven't come across any info that would support your assertion. Snider collecting is different from many other more modern types of rifles. Even on the BMF forum you rarely see talk about how to determine originality of individual Sniders. The fact is that most ordnance issue Sniders have either serial numbers or assembly numbers stamped on many parts at the factory and certainly didn't originate as "mixmasters". My own large-ish Snider collection includes examples that can be demonstrated to be probably all original and others that clearly had replacement parts installed during or post service. With a fairly small number of individuals collecting Sniders (and many of those not disassembling their examples) there is a lot of info that has yet to be published about them.

Ridolpho

[Patrick Chadwick]

Ridolpho, please don't get me wrong. I have no Snider exertise myself, just one beautiful example. I don't recall asserting anything, merely inviting you (and anyone else following this discussion) to look at a thread where others more knowledgeable than myself expressed their opinions. It is certainly very difficult today to tell whether a part that does not seem to fit the general pattern was fitted at the factory or swapped out later.

I thus completely agree with your formulation "examples that can be demonstrated to be probably all original and others that clearly had replacement parts installed during or post service" and in particular with the use of the cautionary word "probably". We are not in disagreement, just looking at the same problem from different viewpoints.

And may I congratulate you on your good fortune in having a number of these rifles to study!

[mrclark303]

I only have an overview of the Sniders, but I must admit, I always considered that the MkIII examples were manufactured as Breech loaders with new steel barrels?

Always something to learn....

[Ridolpho]

I only have an overview of the Sniders, but I must admit, I always considered that the MkIII examples were manufactured as Breech loaders with new steel barrels?

Always something to learn....

Skennerton indicates that some 400 Mk III long rifles were equipped with iron barrels (from Enfield only). He doesn't elaborate about what other differences these had from the normal Mk III 3-band rifles or whether they were conversions of existing muzzleloaders or simply all new rifles with unused iron barrels. 400 out of >150,000 Mk III's produced at Enfield is a pretty small number and any example should have a conversion date in 1869.

Ridolpho