Thanks for sending us photos of your much-loved #16 - and apologies for taking over a month to respond! I'm not on-line much these days.

Our two #16s with no checkering are the only two I've ever viewed. I've heard of a few others, but seen no photos. Yours is an 1882 model and mine is an 1873 sleeved and converted to an 1882 at the Mass. Arms factory. Their ease of take-down made so many of their owners have nice custom traveling cases built for their Maynard target rifles. I've seen all sorts and at every level of quality. Yours has a particularly nice one made for it. It tells me that the original owner of yours likely traveled quite a bit to shoot in target matches - and the amount of ordinary wear tells me he shot it a LOT! I see no careless abuse....just honest ordinary wear from decades of use. Thankfully the subsequent owners preserved the bore for you to enjoy. It's been my experience that no matter the external condition...a Maynard rifle with a perfect bore and chamber will shoot well and accurately with lightly-duplexed BP loads and the proper weight and size bullet. I've never shot pure smokeless in any Maynard - too afraid of a blow-out at the rim gap. I've never shot loaded cases in my .32-35 either - always breech-sheeting the bullet just deep enough to allow the fully-charged case to chamber behind it.

Under the barrel and between the lugs, mine has the matching SN stamped along with a "16". This does not ID the barrel as for a Model #16, but denotes a 1 turn in 16" rate of twist which stabilizes a nominal 165gr. bullet. Does your barrel have such a number stamped between the lugs? The PP bullets for your .32-35 seem "long" for the case in your photo.....but Mass. Arms would furnish anything to suit their customers. Are they close to 165gr.?

Berdan-primed or Boxer-primed cases? Heavy "everlasting"? I have a few original everlasting cases but ordered some CNC lathe-turned new ones from RMC when they were in business.

The windgage front sight looks like a Ballard sight mfg. by Bridgeport Tool for them. Was the base of the sight shimmed to fit the larger Maynard barrel cuts?

Is the SN really #210? If so...that is the lowest M-1882 SN I've seen.

Please let us know how it shoots!

John (xtimberman)

Keep us up on the other Maynards, too.

Maynard;

What a beautiful Maynard ... what calibre is it chambered for?

xtimberman, you needn't worry about blowing out the  case rim on a Maynard because it is exposed. Even the 1873 with about .135" out of the chamber should be safe with any normal load. For example the M98 Mauser has the head of the cartridge extending that far out of the rear of the chamber and they operate at much higher pressures. The 1903 Springfield extends even farther out of the chamber. You just don't see the back of the cartridge on those guns but they stick out unsupported except at the rear.

Most 1882 Maynards were made on surplus Civil War frames from guns repurchased from the Gov't and serial numbers are all over the place. You can't read a lot into serial numbers on the 1882 rifles.

I was hoping to test fire the .22 Long Maynard today, but after driving all the way up to our local range I found that there was thick fog and off and on rain.  Our club won't allow shooting when fog obscures the range since there could be unseen wildlife (especially deer) out behind our shorter range target frames, so no luck today.  I'll have to see what the weather does this coming week and try again ...

OK, will do.  I have lots of shorts as well as a fairly good supply of longs.  The bore is a bit scruffy (dark and a bit rough), so I'd planned to try something with it that I did with an old Remington Gallery model pump in .22 Short I had that was "scruffy" too.  I smeared a light coating of JB Bore Paste on each individual bullet and then "fire lapped" it with about 20 / 25 rounds.  It improved the way the barrel looked and shot fairly substantially.  If worse comes to worse this Maynard might need a reline, but I'll see how it shoots first.  (... and I'm honestly not expecting "match" accuracy ...)

Lol, some of the cases look as old as the rifle.