*British, Snider Enfield Three Band Musket Mark 11, by Birmingham Small Arms Company, Dated 1862, Indian service, Obsolete Caliber*
A 19th Century British Snider-Enfield three-band musket. 90cm barrel, 137cm overall. Brass butt plate and trigger guard. Marked on lock plate with Crowned V.R. Monogram, 1862 over Enfield, Crown cypher over a war arrow, 3, 11. Marked on sight with E/crown/8, left of sight on side of barrel 16/B, 17/B (examiners mark)/crown/TP (Birmingham Proof “Tower Proof”) and War arrow/crown. Receiver crown/TP, 11**, B.S.A. Co for Birmingham Small Arms Company, 23/B, Trigger guard marked with Urdu script. E/crown/25 and. Each band marked E/crown/and the number is indistinct. Stock stamped. Ramrod marked E/crown/18. It was issued to line infantry and has three-groove rifling with one turn in 78 inches (200 cm).
The .577 Snider-Enfield was a breech-loading rifle, with its action designed by the American inventor Jacob Snider. Among the different Snider models, the Snider-Enfield gained widespread usage. In 1866, the British Army officially incorporated it as a conversion system for their widely used Pattern 1853 Enfield muzzle-loading rifles. The Snider-Enfield was in service until 1874 when it was gradually replaced by the Martini-Henry rifle. This rifle has clearly seen service in India as it has an iscription in Urdu on the trigger guard. The British Indian Army continued to use the Snider-Enfield until the late nineteenth century. The Snider was notably powerful.
Rudyard Kipling gave a graphic depiction of its effect in his poem, “The Grave of the Hundred Head”:
A Snider squibbed in the jungle—
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head”.
*Condition*
The rifle is in excellent condition. The rifle cocks and half cocks with a very strong spring. The barrel has minor pitting and some bruises. The woodwork has a great patina and some knocks commensurate with its age. Please see photographs as part of the condition report.
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