M-1878 Martini-Henry and snider rifles ????

[xfoxofshogo]

http://www.ima-usa.com/british-p-1864-snider-type-breech-loading-infantry-rifle-with-short-socket-bayonet-untouched.html

http://www.ima-usa.com/m-1878-martini-henry-francotte-pattern-short-lever-infantry-rifle-untouched.html

http://www.ima-usa.com/nepalese-gahendra-martini-henry-rifle-577-450-untouched-parts-gun.html

wich one of thes would be good to build for shooting ??
can you rebarrel them and ues smokeless powders ??
and dose some one know what kind brass you can ues to make brass for them if keep stock??

[skeettx]

YUK!!!!!!!!!!!

Do NOT buy trash

Look here
http://www.gunbroker.com/Antique-Guns/BI.aspx?Keywords=martini

What caliber did you desire to shoot?

The 577-450 MH brass is available

Mike

[xfoxofshogo]

look like ther in the same shape lol

do you have a link for the brass???

i was thinking i use a few for wild cats or some thing to messs with

[Beekeeper]

I will give you my answer and I am sure it will draw flac but here goes.
Of the three you posted the Snider is the best buy!
I have one that I got from IMA and restored. It is a hoot to shoot as most people at the range have never seen one.
The main problem with the Nepal sniders is often a bad chamber ( all out of specs) miserable sights and sewerpipe barrels. They wind up as wall hangers more often than not as they are not strong enough to rebarrel to anything modern using smokeless powder.

That said about the Sniders I was lucky and got a reasonablly good one and after rebuilding it I fire it with no qualms.

The Francotte parts rifles are a crapshoot and unless you are pretty good at metalurgy I would not buy one to use for anything other than a wall hanger

I have 2 of the Gahendra parts rifles that I rebuilt and rebarreled. Both are shooters.
I had several43 Mauser barrels and rebarreled them with the 43 Mausers barrels
It took a lot of work but the sporter one I made will go to 855 yards which is as far as our range goes.
The other one I rebuilt to look like the original Gahendra and after shooting it for test purposes It lives in my safe.
None of the IMA guns should be shot with anything other than Black Powder.
Thatsaid unless you are good at making parts and doing your own stocks I would pass and buy something else.


beekeeper

[skeettx]

http://www.midwayusa.com/Product/2205122246/jamison-international-brass-577-450-martini-henry

http://www.ehow.com/how_12118703_make-577-450-martini-henry-brass.html

http://www.midwayusa.com/Product/598853/bertram-reloading-brass-577-450-martini-henry-box-of-20

[jbrower]

I've bought both Martini Henry's and Sniders from IMA, but none were "untouched" rifles, so I never got the "experience" of restoring them although all of the internals were still covered in 100+ year-old yakoline.

The Snider is the easier of the two to reload for. You can buy 24ga shotgun hulls from a few places (Grafs comes to mind), trim them down and load them up with 70gn of BP and a 58cal minie or .600 roundball cast from pure lead.

The Snider sights are not very good though. I'm working on using a US Model 1917 rear sight on mine.

[BCRider]

The look to be about in the same shape to me as well. But the IMA ones are a lot cheaper.

The Martini action is a tough one. The original 577-450's were converted to the early versions of the .303 British smokeless cartridge using the original cordite smokeless propellant. I've also got a Martini action that is doing just fine with a 12Ga barrel on it. This one being a Greener conversion. So if you wanted to re-barrel the action to something that has a comparable chamber pressure as the old original cordite rounds or lighter I don't see why you could not do so.

For myself I'd likely try cleaning it and keep it in the original format if the damage from age and storage has not taken its toll. If the wood is gone or the barrel is useless due to rust or other conditions then to me it opens the action up to being re-assigned to project status.

But if it turned out that the gun and wood cleaned up fine and everthing was sound I'd use it as an opportunity to shoot it in the original chambering just to get a glimpse at what these were like to shoot way back then.

[Boz330]

Beekeeper called it correct. From what I have gathered from the British forum the Francotte action is not suitable for anything. If I were you I would get a MK II action if you are going for a build. I don't know if IMA offers the actual MH uncleaned rifles though. I got a hand picked MKII when they first came on the market and it needed clean up but nothing like those. It is a fine shooting rifle in the 577-450 round although a little bit of a pain to load. I also have one of the 303's but most of those have severe throat erosion from the cordite and it is hard to get a boolit large enough to shoot well.

Bob

Bob

[BCRider]

Are the actual Francotte actions as bad as that? Or is the weak point in the barrels? If it's more the barrels the price isn't that bad even if the only useable part is the action. But if the parts in the action are weak or questionable due to inconsistency that's another story....

[Boz330]

Are the actual Francotte actions as bad as that? Or is the weak point in the barrels? If it's more the barrels the price isn't that bad even if the only useable part is the action. But if the parts in the action are weak or questionable due to inconsistency that's another story....

Those actions are a Francotte type action made in the middle east. The weak point is the action. The tilting block bears on the cross pin instead of the back of the action like the true MH. The metallurgy is also VERY SUSPECT. There is a lot more info on the British Militaria Board http://britishmilitariaforums.yuku.com/. Some of them have shown cracks within a few rounds.

Bob

[Beekeeper]

BC Rider,
I bought one of the Francotte parts rifles.
Wanted to use it as a builder.
Have been flamed on other web sites for even thinking about it.
Have a degree in non distructive testing so when it came gave it the full treatment.
The barrel on most if not all of them are lap welded( forge welded) like the old Kentucky rifles were.
The Action was good steel but very soft and badly rusted.
Cleaning up in several areas would have made it too thin to be usable even if I had been able to color case harden it.
The internal parts are one of a kind ( each made individually for that particular rifle) and buying parts does not mean they will interchange.

The wood on all of them (parts or cleanups) is mostly toast.
I have a Gahendra that is more epoxy than wood only because I wanted the original stock.
On the others I made new wood and followed the original lines and procedures as best I could.

If you are wanting to rebuild one and use it for black powder only I would suggest you get an uncleaned one or one they have cleaned!
Even their cleaned ones require a lot of work to be safe.

In the 4 that I have (Gahendras) 2 are original 577/450 and 2 have been rebarreled to 43 Mauser. All are fireable and It took me about 2 years total to get them that way. Not all at one time as I would loose patience and put the away for a month or so.
Total overall work time was about 2 years.

The Francotte I junked and wrote the expence off to learning.

Hope this diatribe helps in some way!!


beekeeper

[Bad Ass Wallace]

Get the best of both worlds, I have a Martini Mk3 with a shot out barrel presently being fitted with a new Walther 577 barrel and chambered for 577 Snider. I wanted a shooter and a new barrel will allow me to see what the old Snider round is capable of!

[skeettx]

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/MVC-006S22.JPG
http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/MVC-007S23.JPG
http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/466-475-GC.jpg

[Ed in North Texas]

Both .577-450 M-H and .577 Snider can be formed from 24 gauge brass shotshells (CBC are common and inexpensive). Necking down the case to .450 should only be done with several annealings and slow and easy, but it can be done. The Snider is easier for there is no need to neck the .577 down to .450.

There is ready made brass on the market, Bertram currently and I would expect Captech* to pick up production of both as Jamison produced both cases.

Ed

* I can't say I'm positive this isn't more "hope" than actual marketing of the product, as I haven't seen Captech brass yet.

[xfoxofshogo]

wow thanks a lot guys lots of info just what i was looking for

I want to build some old looking rifles to shoot.
I love my old 32 spl win and the 8mm mauser and just looking to add a few more that are a bit older

[xfoxofshogo]

i like the looks of that mold

[NickSS]

I have an acquaintance who took a Snider action and cleaned it up and a two band enfield reproduction ML and made his own Snider conversion. It looks like a brand new Snider and shoots great. I have fired it on several occasions and find that it is actually more accurate than the original ML was. So If you get a Snider and it neads a stock and barrel consider getting a ML Enfield and converting it.

[BCRider]

Thanks to those of you that replied about the Francotte versions and the issues with them. I'll certainly be giving those a pass in favour of more decent brands.

[Ed in North Texas]

I have an acquaintance who took a Snider action and cleaned it up and a two band enfield reproduction ML and made his own Snider conversion. It looks like a brand new Snider and shoots great. I have fired it on several occasions and find that it is actually more accurate than the original ML was. So If you get a Snider and it neads a stock and barrel consider getting a ML Enfield and converting it.

Wow, now there is a suggestion worth keeping. I have a rear sight from one of those Enfields waiting (still after at least 18 months or so) to put on a Snider Mark III Artillery Carbine. Not quite the same as the original, but that carbine has more of a native "made from sheet metal" rear sight slide and the slide of the Enfield repro doesn't fit the base of the Snider. the local machine shop happily works on tractor and implement parts, but turned me down on making the new slide mounting match the old one - too small for him. Sooner or later I'm going to have to quite fooling with other BP rifles and solder that new sight on. But today's task was loading 50 .50-70 rounds for a NY State Militia Model Roller. Tomorrow's will be taking a grandson to the range. And so it goes.



I lucked into a cleaned up Mark IV from IMA by way of a 3d party. The bore is clean, no rust and the stock was in pretty decent shape. I was happy, he was happy and GB was happy too. What more can we ask for (other than a mint rifle for $100.00 [smilie=s: )

Ed

[Buckshot]

.............Ah, SNIDERS ! Simply pure fun to shoot whether you hit anything or not! My first Snider was a 3 band I bought several years ago from an outfit in Canada. The stock had been sanded to a fare thee well, and 2 of the 3 bands were the old style. However the old rifle was solid, and I'd bought it on the strength of the bore condition. Surprisingly nice for how old it was. Not too long before I'd become the proud owner of a MkIV 577-450 Martini-Enfield. I had several original Kynoch Berdan primed 577-450 cases floating around. A few I'd altered to take 209 shotgun shell primers. A shooting pal insisted I give him one to turn into a .577 Snider case. A couple weeks later he called and suggested I bring some BP, shotshell primers, and several Mini' bullets to the range next Tuesday as he had the Snider case ready to go.

He had in fact created a Snider case from the 577-450 and said he'd all manner of tool odds and ends including some 'Front end' suspension tools! It was in the afternoon and there were only a few other shooters on the line. I seated a new 209 primer in the case and then pured in enough 2Fg BP to reach what we considered to be the correct height. You see, the case wasn't sized to HOLD a Minie'. The Minie' just kind of sit on top of the powder and you couldn't tip the case or it'd fall out. Atop the powder we set in soem wadded up paper so when you leveled the rifle the powdr wouldn't simply sluice out of the case. You had to hold the rifle muzzle up to load. The case 'mostly' went into the chamber and we had a use a stick to get the breech block fully closed. I perched my left butt cheek on the bench with my right leg kind of dangling. I eared the hammer back aiming at nothing more then the 100 yard berm, and pulled the trigger. "Clack!" went the hammer. So I cocked it again and this time she went off! Lordy, but it about rolled me over backwards off the bench :-) What fun! I guess we took turns shooting it, using that one case. You couldn't guarantee a hit on the 100 yard berm but we didn't care! I guess we were using 90+ grains of 2FG in that case.

Fast forward and I had a Canadian friend who was a retired RCMP captain living in Winnipeg. We were talking on the phone and I'd mentioned 'Snider'. He said, "So you like shooting Sniders eh?" He said he had a bunch of Snider parts I'd be welcome to if I'd like them. So in a few weeks I get this box. He'd sent a Snider carbine (cut down rifle) complete except for the hammer screw.

http://www.fototime.com/1A15641CDD2AC93/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/35572699B1D8361/standard.jpg

Whoever had cut the barrel off had never recrowned it. That needed to be done.

http://www.fototime.com/E1B0A510755C5AA/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/54B2534F933B3AD/standard.jpg

I set it up in the lathe and even before I got the barrel OD running true it was very clear that the bore was clearly off center. Bummer! Using gage pins I determined the bore. I then turned a closely fitting bronze plug to snuggly fit the bore.

http://www.fototime.com/B9C212977516E0D/standard.jpg

I then center drilled it, and set it up to run in a live center. I'd already ground a tool to cut the crown and did the deed. According to those who know it isn't unknown for the bore of the P53 muzzle loader barrels to wander a bit in their travel from the breech to the muzzle. The barrels were first created via beating sheet iron around a mandrel, and then being forge welded. After that they were reamed and rifled, then outside turned. After I had it crowned, in the succeeding weeks and months I tried all manner of loads using BP of different granulations, BP loads with smokless 'kickers, and all manner of different Minie' weights and designs.

One of the issues is the chamber. (Anyone who knows better, or has the details correct me) The British first used the 'Boxer' foil wrapped cases so the chambers were a bit generous in order to accept cases which might be tweaked a bit. They also used a Minie' of .564" OD which had a turned boxwood insert in the base cavity to assist in upset upon ignition. Add to that, the P53 barrels they were using, they'd cut the breeches off then turn and thread them to accept the Snider action, or 'Shoe' as they were called then. The P53 barrels had progressive depth grooves. The grooves were much deeper at the breech, with them not uncommonly being .600"+ deep while the bore (an nominal .577") was constant from breech to muzzle. I'd tried Minie' designs going up to .585" to no real positive result. The barrels also sported a slow 78" twist, so that didn't help much.

http://www.fototime.com/AD10AA21E7DA774/standard.jpghttp://www.fototime.com/81B27EA5C8B88C9/standard.jpg

I'd heard about using .600" round balls by others. The above photo shows 6 different loads using BP. The cases here are the Mag-Tech 24ga shotshells trimed to length, and altered to use 209 shell primers. All the groups were rather poetic in accuracy. A gas to shoot, but only a few would keep 5 rounds in the 8" black at 50 yards. The Snider is apparently a glutton for lube, so while they all had generous lube cookies I'd also dipped the slugs into melted lube after loading. I had a couple articles from some old American Rifleman magazines. One of which dealt with smokeless powder in the Snider. I figured I'd give that a try.

http://www.fototime.com/2460B176D0F5BF9/standard.jpg

The above group was the 577 Snider carbine @ 50 yards. Group 1.875". 24.0grs Unique, .60" Lee RB cast of WW alloy over .080" card wad and .125" lube disc, 1475 fps. After the powder was dumped, I thumbed in a card wad, then took one of the RB's and used it to push the wad down into the case a bit. Then I stuck in a 1/8" thick lube cookie. After that I set a .600" RB in place and used the Lee seater die to seat the RB and apply a mild crimp. The above target was the result. That target is absolutely match grade accuracy compared to what I'd been getting before! I'd loaded 25 rounds. I used a couple to get on target and then fired 5 for group. I also fired 5 offhand at another target. The rest of them were spent shooting at targets of opportunity. A watermelon at 200 yards would have been in dire straits!

.............Buckshot

[Gunor]

Buckshot,

On your last load - 24 gr of unique: was there a lot of space between the card/wads (on top of the powder) and the RB?

Thanks

[Buckshot]

Buckshot,

On your last load - 24 gr of unique: was there a lot of space between the card/wads (on top of the powder) and the RB?

Thanks

.............Oh yeah, a BUNCH of room! The wad was right under the RB. Actually right under the lube cookie which was right under the RB :-) You don't want the wad on top of the powder with 3/4 of empty case above it.