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Safety of Shooting an 1853 Enfield?

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Picked up a nepalese 1853 Enfield from an auction recently for cheap. Appears to be one of the restored rifles IMA offered, but how do I know if it's safe to shoot?
 
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Hmmmmmm proceed with caution on that one........

You have no idea what's going on with the metal, if there's microcracks in the breech area, metal fatigue, how it's been stored.....

What would I do with it? I'd clean the bore really well , run dry patches down the pipe. Pop some caps and make sure a blade of grass will move at the muzzle to make sure the flash channel is clear.

I'd load a blank of about 100 gr with wadding on top to keep it compressed and touch off a blank. Just to make sure there's no obvious defects.

Then I'd load it with whatever you're going to load it with, patched ball, Minie, etc assuming it's a .58 with good rifling.

I'd tie it to something solid or put it under a tire, some wood, whatever and fire a few rounds Redneck Remote with a string tied to the trigger.

Even if it did well with that, I'd shoot it sparingly. There's an article online about a guy shooting one of the Nepalese P58's and it wasn't an optimal experience for him.
 

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