Just came today is a new rifle to my small collection. A 1869 3 band Mark 3 Snider .577 rifle. I will be uploading photos of all markings I can find, I am still a novice and I don't recognize some of them so if there are any you know, please let me know.

She is in a sorry state, full of dirt and gunk and who knows what else. Stock is cracked, Breech opens but extraction mechanism is jammed. Was sold to me as being "complete" and it is, sort of. As you can see in the photos there is what seems to be a cleaning rod. Well, after fighting to get the thing out. It turns out to be a length of metal rod someone has cut down to look like a cleaning rod, Cheeky beggar! Oh well I don't mind too much.

I basically bought it unseen since there was only one photo and it was only of the breech and nothing else. Got it for a decent price (Well I think so...) and I was feeling a bit 'lucky' so I thought "why the hell not".

From the one photo I thought it might of been a Nepalese rifle but to my surprise, it looks to be British made with no foreign markings on the rifle. And while the lock is well worn, you can just make out the date and the top of the crown marking. The marking you can see look legit but I am no expert. I shall include photos for you all below.

The bore is covered in rust....cant say much else, who knows what it looks like underneath all that rust but I can see that the outside of the barrel, especially the part that comes in contact with the wood, has next to no pitting whatsoever! Which in my eyes is nothing short of a miracle. Even my Martini Henry carbine which has a near mint bore has some pitting on the outside. So I am a bit shocked. Hopefully, and I mean hopefully, the bore is not too bad underneath all that thing rust. Fingers crossed.

I am in the process of stripping it to bits and cleaning it. So far I have every thing out apart from the trigger block, which seems to be stuck due to all that much. The barrel, barrel bands, lock plate ect all all out. Will be disassembling the breech block later. Someone in the past has had the barrel out since when they put it back, they put the rear band back the wrong way round!

Also another thing that I find weird is that there is no bayonet lug. Bit strange on what I would guess be a infantry rifle (dont think it was made for the civilian market since there are war department markings on the rifle, but I could be wrong).

Anyway, if anyone can enlighten me on this rifle, please do so. Thank you.

Here are all the photos:

https://imgur.com/gallery/D6CI9iQ

Also a short video (though I apologize for the poor quality, I was doing it one handed on my phone):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha0D-247yUE&t=46s