Drill Purpose Sht LE Mk1***

[Buccaneer]

There are many reasons why a rifle might be down graded to "Drill Purpose" status, I suspect that this one was done because it became obsolete and I think that it may be the reason it has survived.
Whoever was told to DP mark this rifle really went to town and almost every part that could be stamped was, in consequence it made the parts unusable for any other rifle.
There are some obvious markings on the rifle, the "N" under the butt would be a strange place to mark its length in fact I don't think that these rifles were made with different lengths to the butt dimension, could it be to denote "Navy" ownership?
The "1142" number stamped on top of the action has been there for a very long time looking at the font and could possibly be a rack number.
Then there is the "Ishy" screw but this is explained by the fact that at some point in its life this rifle had been wire bound at the fore end, the witness marks on the woodwork are testament to this for its use in grenade launching, the screw would appear to be just another way of reinforcing the stock
The magazine is not not correct for the marque and the bolt appears to have been renumbered to the rifle but apart from that it is matching throughout including its original barrel. As can been seen from the pictures all of the parts are in very good condition, even the underside of the barrel which normally would show some signs of corrosion is as good as the day it was first assembled.
The barrel is clean and bright and gauges at .3035, and it passes both breech and muzzle wear gauging, the headspace is spot on and it has a full set of UK proof house marks which makes it perfectly safe to shoot.
Whilst it was apart for cleaning I took as many pictures of the various "inspectors" marks as I could find, some of the pictures appear to be duplicates but I wanted to show all of the marks as clearly as I could, not all that easy on a round surface.

[browningautorifle]

Nice clean looking example. I should think the length would be marked on the heel as well... I wouldn't do anything to that one, nice.

[Enfield-Stuff]

If you were on this side of the pond I'd happily take it off your hands and bring it home.

[Sapper740]

Atlantic Firearms has DP No.1 MkIII's for sale for $99 each but there's no bringing these back from the dead.

Enfield Drill Rifle - AtlanticFirearms.com

[Surpmil]

Former grenade rifle? "N" used to signify Senior Service at times; why it wasn't "RN" in all cases I don't know.

[Buccaneer]

Former grenade rifle? "N" used to signify Senior Service at times; why it wasn't "RN" in all cases I don't know.

There are obvious signs that the fore end has been wire wound at some point and as far as I know this was only done to reinforce the wood work when a rifle was used for grenade firing, if it was done for some other reason I would love to know.
With no other "Indian" ownership marks on the rifle the "Ishy" screw would have been put there when the wire winding was done, I can see no other reason for it.
As we only had one armed Navy I guess that the "N" was sufficient, Whilst some merchant ships were armed they were always manned by regular Naval personal, so there was only ever one armed Navy service.

---------- Post added at 12:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:08 PM ----------

Atlantic Firearms has DP No.1 MkIII's for sale for $99 each but there's no bringing these back from the dead.

Enfield Drill Rifle - AtlanticFirearms.com

The object of this post was to point out that this rifle is not "Dead" it is in very good condition which the current UK proof house marking show. The "DP" markings in this case show that it was downgraded probably because it had become obsolete. Given its condition it does not appear to have been used very much for "Drill Purpose" which normally means square bashing with new recruits, it has survived remarkably well.

[Surpmil]

Certainly a lucky survivor; lucky for us.

[Roger Payne]

Hi Paul. That is indeed a nice looking rifle that has survived without too much interfering with over the years. It is just possible that it could be one of a batch that came out of, IIRC, Parker-Hale's basement storage tunnel in the early 1980's. I think it was about 1982/83. I took a shine to one & my wife arranged with a friend who was another local dealer (Small Heath Birmingham, near the original BSA site) to acquire me one from the batch. I don't know how many there were altogether but they were floating about for a few years. As far as I can remember they were all Mk1***'s & they had all been wrapped for GF, although the wire had been removed. The so called 'Ishy' screw was also present. Some, according to the tastes of the time (it probably sounds horrendous now), had the woodwork cleaned up to lose the evidence of the wire wrapping. I think some were DP marked, & some EY. Mine has long since gone, but I think it was EY marked. All of the ones I saw were in very nice clean order, not at all like the ex-Indian GF rifles one tends to see these days. I'm only speculating, but yours has the 'look' of one of these Parker-Hale jobs.....

[desperatedan]

Interesting rifle Paul, thanks for posting.

I see there's a couple more DP marked ones up at auction this month here in the UK. Hard to tell from the auction photos how much metalwork is DP marked but the woodwork is well stamped with DP.

Both are BSA Sparkbrook, with 'Ishy' screws and similar signs of former wire wrapping. Maybe coincidence or someone having a clear out?