need help with 1897 trench

[duke133]

I recently acquired an 1897 trench 9518xx and want to break it down for a close inspection and cleaning. Anyone have information on how to proceed? It's US marked with ord. bomb and ord and inspector marked receiver and barrel. I have read where you have to be careful breaking these down.
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

[bigskybound]

I would just go to YouTube. I found great videos on taking down most of my guns and, more importantly, putting them back together again.

[emmagee1917]

I had an ex-gunsmith friend of mine do both of my guns when I picked them up. Took most of an afternoon each , and he knew how to do them. He did do some light fitting and polishing to both while he was in there , but , man , they have a LOT of little screws and pins and pieces. If you do it , be sure to have a lot of plastic trays / boxes / or some such to place each piece in to keep the order of reassembly in and to help ID and rematch the parts / pins / springs .
These are NOT like the M1911 / M1917 / M1919 / M1918 BAR of his later years when he knew the importance of simplicity of design and breakdown.
I would not touch one and I've done nylon 66s . Only simple cleaning and oiling after an outing for me.
Chris

[duke133]

bigskybound & emmagee1917,
Thanks for your replies. I'll check out youtube to see what I might be able to do just to make sure everything is OK and any buildup is taken care of. I figured there'd be a lot of internals so I thought I'd better ask before going in. Thanks again