Guns International #: 101684944
Seller's Inventory #: 210237

Category - Enfield Rifles - Antique Rifles - Percussion

Category
Enfield Rifles
Antique Rifles - Percussion

BRITISH Antique WILSON’S IMPROVED SNIDER PATENT Breech-Loading .577 Rifle Conversion Rifle with 1870 Dated “TOWER” Lock

Description:
BRITISH Antique WILSON’S IMPROVED SNIDER PATENT Breech-Loading .577 Rifle 

Conversion Rifle with 1870 Dated “TOWER” Lock

Here we present an antique Wilson’s Improved Snider Patent Breech Loading Rifle in .577 Snider, originally made circa the late 1850s before being updated via the Snider system circa 1870. American inventor Jacob Snider designed the conversion for rifle-muskets to be turned into breech-loading firearms. Britain had used the Enfield Pattern 1853 rifle-musket for a decade when breech-loaders came on the scene. Many of the major powers at the time faced a similar problem in that their arms suddenly became obsolete, and not wanting to throw over all their small arms at once, they converted them with this system. Despite being obsolescent in many ways, even at inception, this “trapdoor” style of making single-shot muzzleloaders into single shot breech-loaders lasted for several decades. The British Empire adopted this technology in 1866. Other nations soon followed suit, including the United States of America, which used a very similar method called the Allen Conversion to achieve the same goal. This lasted a surprisingly long time, from 1866 to the 1890s.

Thomas Wilson was an English engineer and inventor who worked out of Birmingham, England and held over 25 British firearms patents, which he registered between 1855 and 1868. However, Wilson only briefly appears in English directories as a “Gunmaker”, during the years of 1861-1862. As a result, it is believed that most of the rifles manufactured using his patented designs were produced by other Birmingham gunmakers under license from Wilson. 

The overall condition is very good. Excellent action. Bright bore in good shape with nice rifling. The muzzle seems to have been crudely ground or filed, probably in an effort to get a bayonet to fit. The rear sight leaf spring has broken, so that the sight ladder will move freely if the rifle were put upside down. “TOWER/1870” is engraved on the lock. Proof marks on the left side of the barrel. Solid stock in very good shape. On the right stock of the buttstock, a few stamps have been sanded own, but “MODEL 1870’ can be faintly read. An interesting rifle from 1870s England!

Own the original! This is a legitimate antique and not a reproduction.

Barrel is 30-5/8 inches.

Caliber: .577 Snider

Overall condition as seen in photos.

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ancestryguns

$1485

#210237
 

SOLD

Antique: Yes