UVF Ulster Lee Speed

[boltaction]

Good evening:
I picked up a matching BSA Co Lee Speed patents Metford Mk II* at an auction down East a week or two ago and it arrived today. I am quite pleased with it (auctions without great photos can be a nail biter) but wonder about an oval "UVF For God and Ulster" stamp on the buttstock. This was not mentioned in the rather sparse auction description. As I understand it, the UVF was formed in 1912 by Irish Protestants to try and prevent Home Rule, and the UVF was involved in that smuggling operation of German Mausers and a few million rounds of ammunition. Anyone run into one of these before--is a private purchase "one off" or part of a bulk purchase of obsolete-ish arms from Britain, "unofficially sanctioned"?

I will try to post some photos in the next day or so when I have time.

Thx!

Ed

Information

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[mrclark303]

Looking forward to the pictures, sounds like a very interesting rifle. I do love rifles with history!

[Frederick303]

Old martini 303 conversions are more common found with the hand/UVF mark. Generally there is an issue number on the wood as well. At the time there was a 6 or 10 schilling yearly gun license (old brain forgets the exact sum) required to take a privately owned arm outside of the curtilage of ones domicile, but this was waived for volunteer unit arms or arms sued in volunteer activities (such as full bore target practice). The UVF bought what they could, all of the money was privately raised the there was some cross over between what was private and what was privately owned but marked otherwise. As the UVF units were formally part of the volunteer movement, they were allowed to purchase arms in the trade before the "defense of the realm act" in late 1914 to 1915 put an end to it.

[boltaction]

There is no issue number mark on the wood. Just the Hand symbol.

Cheers

Ed

[Frederick303]

Then it was likely a personally owned rifle, which is consistent with what is known, as the marked and issue number rifles tend to be .303 martinis, Maybe Vetterlis (10.4 Italian) and 1904 Steyr Mannlichers (8mm). Of course this is conjecture on my part, I do not know but it is consistent with the issues related to the 1870 firearms act,which one does read about in old volumes on the topic.

When I was researching such stuff I only ever saw one SMLE so marked and it was marked with a disc UVF 164, with no hand imprint. Other than a few martinis and Steyr 1904 rifles, actual UVF rifles that can be identified are very rare. For example, though the Vetterlis were know to have been issued to the Ulster home guard in 1940, I could not find any rifle with issue marks, though I did not look very hard, my interest being Enfields.

Also the source of these arms: back in the 1970s when the troubles were at their height, the Ulster police at various times sold off "lots" of confiscated arms that they had collected in Belfast. The last sales record I wav seen was from 1981. As they could not be imported into the US of A they seem to have gone to the UK, Canada and Australia at the time. The UK seemed to be the final resting place for a bunch of 1921 Tommy guns, which I presume were made into non-firing display pieces.

If you were interested in sending me data on the rifle, I would put it in my database of Irish rifles.

[boltaction]

Will do. There were actually two in that auction. I had bookmarked a Long Lee Enfield BSA commercial as well but didn't bid on it as the description didn't state whether it was matching or not and the auctioneer didn't answer my question. Looking at the photos again though it also had the oval mark on the buttstock. So, two in one auction.... it was serial number 37571 accordig to the auction description. Mine is serial number 1105

Ed

[5thBatt]

Then it was likely a personally owned rifle, which is consistent with what is known, as the marked and issue number rifles tend to be .303 martinis, Maybe Vetterlis (10.4 Italian) and 1904 Steyr Mannlichers (8mm). Of course this is conjecture on my part, I do not know but it is consistent with the issues related to the 1870 firearms act,which one does read about in old volumes on the topic.

When I was researching such stuff I only ever saw one SMLE so marked and it was marked with a disc UVF 164, with no hand imprint. Other than a few martinis and Steyr 1904 rifles, actual UVF rifles that can be identified are very rare. For example, though the Vetterlis were know to have been issued to the Ulster home guard in 1940, I could not find any rifle with issue marks, though I did not look very hard, my interest being Enfields.

Also the source of these arms: back in the 1970s when the troubles were at their height, the Ulster police at various times sold off "lots" of confiscated arms that they had collected in Belfast. The last sales record I wav seen was from 1981. As they could not be imported into the US of A they seem to have gone to the UK, Canada and Australia at the time. The UK seemed to be the final resting place for a bunch of 1921 Tommy guns, which I presume were made into non-firing display pieces.

If you were interested in sending me data on the rifle, I would put it in my database of Irish rifles.

A lot of the Tommy guns also came to NZ