Revisited, The Rifle No. 5 Mark 2

[Lance]

The Rifle No. 5 Mk 2 (D5E171/X/8) revisited. Newly acquired for my collection, I have been on the hunt for one for a while as this rifle is a unique part of the Lee-Enfield history.

From what has been written in “The Lee-Enfield” the D5E171/X/8 rifle program was an experimentation in strengthening the body for grenade launching trials and either directly or indirectly trying to eliminate the “wandering zero” of the Rifle No. 5 Mark I. It was also the initial trial on the body mounted trigger which in 1949 would result in the Rifle No. 4 Mark 2, 1/2, and 1/3.

It has been stated that 50 of these rifles were ordered, however based on observed serial numbers it appears that around 100 were manufactured if the numbers of the rifles were sequential. The lowest serial number encountered is my example, BB1402, with the highest BB1479 just selling at auction this week (I was outbid, but I did not try too hard). The “BB” serial number block was used in the standard Mark I production but I have only found examples as low as BB3XXX.

These “Mark 2” rifles are stated to be conversions of standard Mark I bodies but upon examination, it appears that the body modifications were machined out of the rough body forging and not welded and machined. If they were modified by welding and machining my naked eye cannot pick up any signs of this occurring.

As you can see in the pictures the triangular support added helps spread the shock load to a greater area of the butt socket body area, in later No. 4 Mark 2s this addition is mostly removed. This triangular support resulted in a significant amount of the fore-end being removed with the rear fore-end tie-plate. A cross screw was added for fore-end stability which is larger than the forward trigger guard screw.

The trigger guard for these Mark 2 rifles were of new manufacture as the shape was changed to help with some of the shock load distribution to the fore-end itself. Just the rear portion of the guard is different and is shown with a standard No. 5 Mark I for comparison.

The overall condition of this rifle appears to be un-issued which is similar to most of the other examples observed.

The accessories for the Mark 2 are harder to locate than the rifle itself. One advanced collector has a complete system, myself I only have one component of the sight assembly.

If any other collectors have an example outside of the 1402-1479 serial number range please let me know. For comparison the link below is for capt14k’s example he posted 4 years ago.

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=65818&page=1

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