About ten years ago I was visiting with a neighbor near my cabin when he showed me this old long barrelled rifle. His father had a body shop and over the years a few customers had paid their bills with guns and other articles and this one obviously spent a long time in a corner of the shop before he passed away and the neighbor got possession of it.  It was covered with dirt and surface rust and what turned out to be brass fittings had turned black with oxidation. It had a strange breechblock that was frozen about a third of the way open and appeared to have been pounded on a bit. Wiping off the sideplate revealed "Enfield" and "1867".

It was obvious he had never done anything to it since receiving it and said he didn't intend to so I asked if he wanted me to take it and see what I could do to clean it up. He handed it over along with a couple brass cartridges with cardboard crimped ends that were actually shotshells marked .577 Snider.

It took about a month of soaking to get the breechblock free and in the meantime I cleaned it up and fired one of the shotshells to test operation. It was a short unexpected relationship with a very interesting rifle.

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