Here's what I started with...



Here's where I'm at right now... the middle one.



Bought a replacement trigger guard casting from the Rifle Shoppe, I had to polish it but it's a high quality reproduction at a very reasonable price and it's worth every penny.



Still got a good bit of finishing work to do on the stock and rebluing the barrel and barrel bands.
I've been taking it to the range but I haven't found the right combination yet.

Jim

WOW, nice job Jim. you are really into the classics.

Turning into a some nice pieces.
The other two look done to me, but I'm no builder........
I take it you have fired the first two and everything is solid?

Amazing that those three are the same as the 'before' pictures....lots of time involved, I'm guessing.

And BTW, I noticed you have a 'forth' set of resting pegs on the wall

Hey Wolf..I have one like the bottom one Boer War vintage.

Thanks Jim and yeah I love old rifles, even the ones that you know will never be safe to shoot are still fun to clean up and hang on the wall.
I enjoy history and these rifles definately have that, the top two are about a 150 years old and the one on the bottom is about 130.

Murphy,
I've fired both the Enfields and they've functioned perfectly so far.
I decided to take your advice regarding that top one and just give it a very light cleaning on the metalwork and put it on the wall.
The bore on both rifles are good and about the same condition so I figured to use the parts rifle and replacement stock and build the shooter.
I still don't know if that 302 is a rack number or inventory number but I'm not going to desturb it.

Didn't take as long as I figured it would fitting the stock on the rebuild and just worked on it when I could spare a little time.
I doubt I have 30 hours total invested in the shooter so far, probably have 3 or 4 hours cleaning time in the Top one and about 8 hours on the Martini Henry on the bottom, that thing was really filthy.
I haven't shot the Martini Henry yet, still saving up for the brass which might as well be gold plated.
It's 62 bucks for 20 unprimed shell casings.
Since this is a Nepalese copy of the Martini Henry it isn't really wise to try shooting factory Martini Henry ammo, which is all for the best since it's 130 bucks for 20 rounds.
20 rounds, plus shipping, plus the Hazmat fee would cost more than I paid for the rifle to start with.

That 4th set of pegs if for a P-1864 Snider breech loader that I'm going to buy as soon as I can afford it.
That will complete the antique collection I want.
There are a few other rifles that would be interesting to have but they would require a considerable amount of work to bring back to life that I might not be able to do myself.
I looked at a Brown Bess musket, a Brunswick rifled musket and a smoothbore Brunswick all of which are upwards of 170 to 180 years old.
I could probably manage the woodwork but restoring the metalwork on these rifles would probably be too costly.
The parts can be had at the Rifle Shoppe for damn near any of these old muzzel loading rifles up to and including a complete museum quaility reproduction for about a grand.

You have a real British Martini Henry Archie?
This one is a M-1878 Francotte Pattern Martini Henry built in Nepal in the later 1880's.
The thing mechanically looks like it was never used and was packed full of the local version of cosmoline which kept rust and wood rot at bay for the last 130+ years.
Like I mentioned to Murphy, as soon as I can manage it I'm going to buy the brass and handload some black powder cartridges and take it to the range.
The bore is pristine and using the correct bullets I see no reason it wouldn't be just as accurate as any modern rifle, more so than some since the barrel is 33 inches long.

I wanted a 53' Enfield or 61' Springfield to go with my Civil War pistol replicas but the price on the real Civil War antiques obviously put them well out of my reach and surprisingly enough it turned out to be the same with the replicas of these rifles.
I bought my modest little collection of real antiques for less than the price of one of the Enfield replicas.
These aren't Civil War relics by any means but to me they are close enough.

Since getting into collecting these Nepalese rifles the only one left to complete the set is the Snider.
It's a 53' Enfield modified into a breechloader and shooting it would be relatively cheap.
It's also the bridge between the muzzelloading rifled muskets and the purpose built breechloading Martini Henry rifle copies.

Jim

If anybody is interested in looking into getting one of these, here are a couple of links, the prices are good and the deliveries are prompt.
One thing about these rifles is due to their age they are not considered firearms by the BATFE but rather relics and antiques.
In most instances they can be shipped right to your door without having to go through a firearms dealer but it varies in a few states.

Atlanta Cutlery

Legendary Arms

I do indeed. It's an H.R.B Co. .303 made in 1896. It with about 50 others were used for rifle drill by a local sea cadet company. I was the drill instructor at the time. They got hold of some "new" Lee-Enfields and were going to toss out the Martini Henris...I took one home. That was about 40 years ago BTW

Don't blame you at all Archie and a very nice rifle you have, lots of history attached to them.
Is it still functional or has it been cut and/or welded like a lot of the old drill rifles I've seen?
A damned shame too that somebody would do that to a perfectly functional rifle.
If it's still functional, have you fired it?
Not trying to do the old 20 questions routine but I have a soft spot for old guns.
If it's functional and you haven't been shooting it, black powder and low power smokeless cartridges for the .303 aren't terribly expensive and should be safe enough to use in that old warhorse if you wanted to get a little range time with it.

Jim

Very nice Wolf. Restoring old firearms is an enjoyable pastime.
I had a receiver sight for a Martini but I lost it some time ago. No idea where it went.
Archie two of my Lee-Enfields have a Canadian connection.

It had not been cut down or welded; but it also had not been maintained either. Somewhere along the way somebody spray painted the metal parts in a semi-gloss black. This saved them from a lot of corrosion at least. There is so muuch crud in the bore that you can barely see any light at all. I would say that it has not been fired fro 100 years but it still 'functions' in the sense that the action still works. One of these days I'll have a go at cleaning it up. I expect that the first step will be to remove the stock and bring all the metal bits it to a buddy's garage and let them soak in 'gunk' for a while.

Will it be receiving a little oil to the stock?

Archie did they ever use Suncorite on Martini Henry's? This stuff seems to flake off pretty badly some of the Enfields I've seen finished with it.

Doing some nice work Wolf.

Wish it wasn't so costly to rebarrel mine.
I'd go with either 45 Long Colt or 45-70, both of which would be much cheaper to either buy or reload than the 577-450 it uses now.
I wouldn't mind if it was .303 since that too would be cheaper and much easier to find.

Still have to finish sanding the stock on the Enfield then I'll probably use 2 or 3 coats of boiled linseed oil.
When they finish these reproduction stocks they put a coat of dark walnut stain on them but they don't put any kind of sealer like linseed or tung oil on them.
I don't mind the dark color but I had to do a lot of sanding to get the thing fitted to that barrel and the barrel bands.
I don't think I could restain the wood to match what they used without completely removing all the stain amd starting over.
Once I sanded through the stain I found that the wood has some very nice grain and a few coats of BLO will darken it up so I'm not going to restain it.

Thanks OG, it's helped develope skills I never thought I'd need.

Jim

Did you try spraying the stock with oven cleaner and let it set for about 20 minutes ? Work it with an old toothbrush. Then rub it off real good with an old rag. You will be surprised at how well that cleans up the wood.

I don't even know what Suncorite is



never thought of that ! might try it. How about an equally good idea for getting spray paint and 100 years worth of accumulated junk off the metal bits ? I was thinking of chucking the whole works into a vat of "gunk"

Aircraft paint remover. It is really effective at removing paint, glue, solvent remains, etc. that's what we use at the shop. It cleans up with water and is non-flammable.

Then clean up all the metal parts with a mineral spirits dunk.

and where might one procure some of this aircraft paint remover ? the local USAAF bases closed in the early sixties

Check with auto parts store. May have to order it or get it on line yourself.

The stuff we use is made by Klean-Strip. Product number QAR343 WM Barr &Co Memphis Tennessee 38113

fair enough......all of this is , of course, on my 'round two it' list

Suncorite is an enamel paint used by Great Britain. Australia, India and probably others as a finish on various weapons including Lee-Enfields, Brens and Stens.