Surprisingly I found a broken cartridge stuck in the chamber: I went through plenty of nitrile gloves as well. I basically just threw shop rags down on the cement floor and cleaned it there to save my work bench from being covered in crud.
I then got the handguard off and tapped the rod out from the back (the rod is threaded for attachments but is not threaded into the gun):Īs you can see, the gun was absolutely filthy: The barrel bands won't come off unless the rod is out so I had to bend the broken end away from the barrel and then cut it off. This resulted in the end of the rod snapping off:
Nepalese p 1878 martini henry francotte driver#
I tried soaking it with penetrating oil for days and then put a screw driver in the slot and tried to twist it free. I was able to twist it a bit and it had some movement but I could not get it out. My rifle's cleaning rod was completely stuck. This screw holds the buttstock into the receiver and was covered in wet preservative, which is what I imagine the crap looked like before it dried out on the rest of the gun:
Disassembly is an undertaking and requires a bit of heat to minimize damage to the screws. The preservative used by the Nepalese is dried out and like a thick wax. There are lots of warnings on the IMA website about missing parts and bad condition but mine appeared to be intact and included a proper cleaning rod. Here's the rifle right after I took it out of the box and bubble wrap: He uses a giant ultrasonic cleaner on the whole gun but I only have a tiny ultrasonic cleaner that I used on the small parts so I did most of the cleaning by hand. This video from IraqVeteran8888 was extremely helpful. I recently got a Mark IV Pattern A Martini-Henry from IMA and have been cleaning it up. A few weeks ago there was a GD thread about Martini-Henry rifles that ended up costing me more money. This is a cross-post from the blackpowder board.