The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I have got a question for the clever heads on here

A Snider expert on here?

The Snider rifle, as I have understood it, the military converted the muzzle loaders to breech loaders using the Snider design.

The British Army used the Enfield for this, hence it being called the Snider-Enfield.

Is there such a rifle as a Snider...only called Snider....if so where was it manufactured and year?

Ta muchly :P

As far as I am aware all of Jacob Sniders Patents were in relation to conversions to breech loading from contemporary extant muzzle loading rifles.

So no such thing as a "genuine" Snider?

Am I right when I say that the word Snider is not the rifle then...but a word attached to any rifle that has had the conversion done?

Regarding the P53 Snider conversions, I do know that the Mk3 was purpose built as a breech loader and not converted.

I have a really nice example of a Mk3 and a cracking P53, they make very interesting companions.

Both off ticket at the moment, but I intend to shoot them both in the future.

Cheers, John.

The expert is right (of course) - according to Wiki...Jacob Snider (1811–1866) was an American mechanical engineer and inventor. He invented and patented a method of converting existing muzzle-loading rifles into breech-loading rifles, notably the Snider-Enfield.

I remember someone on here posting a picture of one in his 'Enfield collection', and had assumed (and wrong again) that it was a muzzle loader - The Snider-Enfield is yet another very interesting rifle....

A quote from Kipling...a bit morbid but apt (from Wiki)...


The weapon was notably powerful. Rudyard Kipling recorded in his poem, "The Grave of the Hundred Dead":


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

Dougan, you on the German wine again? :lol:

Its one big, big bullet......you would definitely not want to be hit with one!

christel wrote:Dougan, you on the German wine again? :lol:

:lol: ....Cheeky :P

Actually I'm sipping a small whiskey (Dromia will approve of that more than the Kipling quote)...

...lately, when folk on here have been talking about older rifles I've been doing a lot of 'googling', as I really don't know much about anything earlier than an SMLE - it's dangerous though...as it's just adding to the already long list of rifles I want....

With this Snider fascination of mine I have walked into a world I did not know existed and words are being used that sound very foreign to me. Of course I know there is such a thing as a SOWR however that was about it. All very interesting and I definitely want one tongueout

I reckon I can get one out to about 800...

Huntervixen...would you by any chance have a picture to post?