I saw one of these at a gun show in Texas. It was an absolutely gorgeous piece of history and a whole lotta gun to hold as well; it felt good in the hands though.
One of the best channels specialized in black powder warfare. Very informative, mixing lot of theoretical knowledge with practical presentation and a bit of humor. I do enjoy watching your videos sir!
I just became the proud owner of this rifles distant American cousin, a Springfield trapdoor. Always cool to see the British approach to things. That Snider is quite the piece!
Sir, this is a terrific video. My maternal grandfather was born and raised in Nova Scotia, and he took my grandmother, mother and uncles to the US in 1951. He used to tell me the story of how he killed a bull moose (in Nova Scotia, of course) from a distance of 10 feet ...using a Snider short rifle!. Before the days of RU-vid I had no idea what the rifle looked like or how it functioned. But your video presented all aspects of the weapon in a fantastic way. I thoroughly enjoyed the fruits of your work, and the video brought some happy memories of my grandfather, who passed away 30 years ago.
Hello, I want to ask about Snider's patent, did he ever receive any compensation from the British government? Also by the way, why wasn't the Snider pattern ever adopted by the Americans given that Snider was American and similar pattern was adopted by the French and Russians, both swing breech locks?
The short answer is that Uncle Sam before the 1950s was a stingy guy who hated spending more on guns than he needed to and Snider came at the wrong time to get his attention. That long answer is that It is important to remember that before 1954, the US Government considered military expenditures outside of wartime to be a minor concern of government, so it was loath to spend money on anything military until absolutely necessary, In 1866, when Snider was getting his gun adopted by the British, the US Army was trying to get rid of expensive modern rifles bought during the Civil War to offset the debts caused by the war. Remington's enormously-successful Rolling-Block design was contemporary with Snider but once the war was over, Uncle Sam said screw the cost of these expensive breech-loaders and went back to muzzle-loading until 1873, when he adopted the cheapest way to convert Civil-War Muzzle-Loaders to breech-loading he could find. It was 1892 (by which time most of Europe had adopted or were well into adopting smokeless-powder repeating rifles) before he was willing to adopt a new gun of any real note and the 1873 Trap-Door Springfield was still the most-common arm of the US Army in 1898 when he went to war with Spain because he was hated paying for the tooling to make the Krag-Jorgensen he adopted years earlier. Oh for the days when Congress prided itself on how much money it saved, not how much it spent.
Another good video. I like that these videos are very informative without being too dry. Glad to see you improving them each time as well. Keep up the good work!
SNIDER! super neat EDIT: Love the cross sectional drawing at 2:46 It really helps one to understand the cartridge. It looks like the cartridge base is built about like a current shotgunshell. Maybe that works fine with the 20ksi or so pressures of black powder. This ammo is a really neat incremental step on the road towards the more modern smokeless cartridges we have later.
This is the kind of channel everyone should love. Factual, deliberate, well researched, and full of love for its subject matter. This is the kind of stuff that makes me happy I chose to study history!
What a wonderful presentation of His/Her Majesty's Canadian Victorian service arms and drill. You are to be congratulated for your fine work and unique contribution to the general understanding of the way it was in Canada in the nineteenth century.
I had one years ago before you could get brass from Bell and a few other places. i used a round ball and a 24ga shotgun shell to make cartridges It worked pretty well. I enjoy your videos some of the best done videos on RU-vid.
Thanks to this video....I just went from not knowing jack-squat about the vintage rifle I just mounted near my fireplace----to fully realizing the beauty, history, technicality and function of this .577 1862 Snider Mk II Short Rifle that I can proudly call my own. Mine is in excellent condition and I am now about to get it analyzed to see if we can fire it. I cannot explain how excited I am about this!
+wigster600 Agreed whole heartedly. Your hands look a little beat up, hope it isn't too uncomfortable. Aloe and hand cream keep me going in my arid environment.
1337billybob I had burnt my finger during some sloppy soldering of the backsight for adjustment purposes. Other than that, just normal wear and tear... :)
hello from Italy !!! Great and super-video of course, very well-made. Last week I was in a gunshop not far from my home to see (and purchase) a Mod. 1879 Trapdoor that will join my small collection of Western-related firearms. The gun was on its rack near other lined-up longarms, all from second half of '800 and a couple of Snider-modified British guns were there as well... what a fashinating things!! Never say never, possibly will get one of those in a near future. Thanx for sharing!! Frank.
I'm trying to avoid repeating the gushing admiration that your viewers are spreading throughout these comments… but it's difficult. Instead, I'd like to thank you for teaching me about my grandfather's rifle, which I recently inherited. The information you are sharing, and the passion with which you do it means a lot to me. It genuinely helps me to connect with a part of my family history I could not understand otherwise. Sincere thanks and best wishes go to you.
Damn, I was wondering about that shirt all through the video, something about it just tweaked my curiosity, so the ending made my day. Great video as usual, cheerypips, Sean.
+popojoeexplode I like to think that the Trapdoor bridges the Snider- Martini era... It had the features of the older generation (like the Snider) but had the calibre of the new generation (like the Martini).
@@britishmuzzleloaders American firearms history tends to make rather large jumps compared to Continental Europe. Went straight from muzzle loading black powder to brass cartridges to a magazine fed bolt action. A lot of the transitional designs are notably absent in American firearms history.
Really appreciate your approach and what you teach. I've had an 1871 Snider Enfield that has been passed down in my family and never knew much about it til now!
britishmuzzleloaders it's the long model. Still figuring out the markings on it. So far I see it has the DC marking on the stock along with a 9 over a 396 on the other side. Don't know what they mean!
Paul, The DC is a Canadian Militia marking denoting "Dominion of Canada". Essentially a issue military arm... The numbers might be a battalion number and rack number... Best take some photos and put them up in the Snider Forum at the British Militaria Forums... There will be all kinds who will be able to comment.
This is really cool. I fully admit my knowledge muskets and early breechloaders is severely lacking. But your approachable and methodical videos are highly enlightening. And wrt the shirt I think that is really awesome. It looks great and I hope it sees many years of good use
I love this channel. It's the only channel I know of that goes so deep into the history behind the guns it presents. I just wish there was an American counterpart. I did notice the British load their P53 Enfields different than the Confederate soldiers did.
+Marcel Monroe Glad you have found the channel to your liking, Marcel. Interestingly enough, the British style of cartridge was "officially" adopted by the Confederacy (but by no means used it exclusively)... So I was wondering what you were referring to as "the difference"... Do you mean the difference between the British and the American stye cartridge with the bullet mounted "point out"?
That, and how on the western front of the war (being a Missourian reenactor myself) it wasn't unheard of for people to wrap their own cartridges in what ways they could. Well, I'd love to find a primary source on this to show you, but I'm actually going mostly by word of mouth from the long time reenactors I run around with sometimes.
Marcel Monroe The only reason that I asked is because, by you mention of the Confederacy and the ammo they adopted was essentially identical in operation to the cartridge shown in this clip. So when you said that Confederate soldiers loaded their weapons differently, I was curious if you were referring to that cartridge or to the more general Burton style cartridge that is indeed a completely different animal. Cheers.
@@britishmuzzleloaders yes, I was at a shooting competition and the Confederate shooters emptied the powder into the barrel and put the ball in paper and all. Were, they doing it wrong? Using 3 band enfields.
Your videos and presentations are excellent,, I wished others that I watch were as professional and era correct as yours , keep up the great work ,,,I also shoot many other rifles that you make videos of and Ive learned a lot from the videos ,,,thanks !!
I think I remember reading somewhere that the (British) War Office considered that a 6' (72") reach of rifle & bayonet was considered the minimum necessary for the Infantryman to hold off a cavalry charge, that is planting the butt on the ground & angling the combination forward. It seems to make sense as the shorter Martini henry was reequipped with the longer P76 bayonet. Great video again Rob.
Amazing video once again! I am looking forward to seeing more of the Snider, it is a personal favorite of mine. A snider was the first rifle I ever bought for myself and I have no regrets.
Well currently I use a .590 round ball in a plastic 24ga hull. I do hope to switch over to 2 groove miniballs in 24ga brass hulls soon though. I am not sure if I should go for a .600 or .590 miniball. What is your opinion?
britishmuzzleloaders I will have too look into those, thank you :) . What kind of case life do you get out of those with all the reloading and annealing?
MrGaminCanadian Hardly any annealing as once they are fire formed, you don't size them... Really, very easy! Almost all of it can be done by hand... Don't need a press.
Only started watching your videos after buying a martini Enfield as I've always collected no1mk3's. Never commented on a video but gotta let you know yours are fantastic. Straight to the point. Know your stuff and fit in more information in 1 minute then most videos do over 20 minutes. And that's one impressive moustache.
+britishmuzzleloaders Only shot my 150 grain hand loads as it was all i had when i bought it but getting some 215gr bullets as I don't cast, to hard to get the right lead around here. And I'm yet to decide on whether I bother craming in 70gr of BP, tried it just to see if I could make one but takes a long time and lotta compression.
beau nottage Don't bother with BP.. It's a red herring... Cordite was introduced in 1891, before some units had even been issued with the MLM... How much BP did you get into the case? 40,... 50 gr? not even close to 70, I bet. BP was only a stop gap and not intended to be the round-of-choice... The rifles (both MLM and especially the ME) were designed to fire smokeless ammo. Of course, I'm not one to try to stop anyone from experimenting, its just that a lot of people think these rifles were designed as BP rifles and were "converted to smokeless" later... Cheers.
+britishmuzzleloaders yeah I was just gonna give it ago to see if I could actually do it but 10 minutes to load one case isn't for me And Yeah I measured out 70 and perhaps spilled a little but I got it all in eventually. Used FFF and would ram it down just past the shoulder, pour in more, repeated that about 5-6 times and seated my bullet. Was hard work though
+Blank- blade Even not being a re-enactor, I can see the quality!.... :-)... It'll last forever... Yes it was a great gift. It isn't really a British or Empire service issue style (they were white until the greyback came along) but there is some evidence that civilian shirts like this were used in the Canadian Militia (privately purchased by the men) to augment a somewhat haphazard supply system.
Greetings from Russia. Thanks for your videos. Excellently shot video, informative and cool voice in the background. You deserve a lot more views and subscribers. Good luck.
My congratulations on your series of videos sir. Having just recently started collecting old antique firearms (no licenses needed), I find your video's VERY informative and absolutely very well and professionally made. You really have done your research. A snider rifle (so far only handguns, none of the military), is certainly on the list to get one day as Snider conversion were used by the Dutch army as well (before the introduction of the Beamont).
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Actually, I have found a Snider rifle (long model) for sale, seems to be a conversion made by BSA in 1871. Just don't know yet what a decent Snider should be or is worth yet.
Great video , I have a Canadian snider carbine ,have had it about fourty years and love to shoot it ,even used it for deer season one year . Yes it does work quite well on Pennsylvania deer . I have always had a lot of comments on my choices for deer season ,snider , martini henry , swiss veterlli , more fun with the old timers . thanks for the great information as always Love your channel
you are correct ,the deer just dropped like a sledge hammer had fell on him .It was a fifty yard shot ,rcbs custom mould 90 gr ffg wax plug and greased with lamb tallow and beeswax ,has quite a bit of a slap on both sides of the carbine .
Hand made shirt! Real, quality, hand made shirt! Most reenactors don't care (I will not tell you who, but many are using velcro instead of buttons and... they are big part of many big reenactment battles... Thank you for another great part!
