No.1 MkIII - 1953 FTR query

[Thunderbox]

Not disagreeing with you Tbox, I'm just very surprised. I knew the cutoff was reinstated into production between 1922 and 1941 but I thought that was it and this is the first time I've heard the suggestion that they were installing cutoffs during the 50's. It's my understanding that it didn't happen in Australia but maybe someone will prove me wrong.

I'm not saying BSA necessarily re-installed missing cut-offs during the 53 FTR (although I actually think that might be a distinct possibility, given BSA's inclination to quality and "completeness"), but pointing out that cut-offs were re-installed en masse during official British military refurbishments of the 1920s, and that the cut-off remained part of the rifle spec until at least 1941 (e.g. BSA's production of the last full-spec British military No1s). Most of the No1 MkIIIs that BSA procured would have had cut-offs (indeed, most of them would have been "star barred out" rifles), and these would mostly have been FTR'd and sent out with the cut-offs in situ.

I think post-war EMER's do not contain any reference to the cut-off, as by then the whole No1 rifle was officially obsolescent, and its maintenance programme was simply adjusted down to a basic make-do/patch-up level as stocks ran out. If, by contrast, the in-service rifle (the No4) had had a cut-off, then the EMERs would have had specific instructions about the cut-off, its retention or removal, and any related stocking-up issues.

[jmoore]

We've had some good older threads on this very same rifle type (No.1 Mk.3* BSA 1953 FTRs), and I'm hunting for photos of mine. Generally birch stocked and suncorited. No magazine cutoffs that I recall.