sporterised DP Lithgow

I bought a sporterized Lithgow that turned out to be DPed. When I showed up at the guys house to look at it he met me in his front yard with rifle and a box of ammo in hand. He then took me out back of his house where he had a makeshift 100 yd. range set up and proceed to put ten rounds down range into what turned out to be a very respectable 2.5 inch group then proudly asked if I wanted to try. I took the rifle at which time I noticed a very prominent DP in the top right side of the action. When I told him what that meant he was skeptical to say the least so we got on his computer where I showed him that what I said was true.
You would have thought that I just told him his dog had died. He said that he had been shooting it a lot over the last ten years and had no idea.I told him that until I started studying up on Enfields I did not know about it ether.
I finally bought the rifle for much less than he originally wanted of course mostly because I felt bad and he needed money. It has lots of markings and a very nice barrel. Interestingly enough it's the same year as my Long Branch.
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...00_02481-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...00_02471-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...00_02491-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...00_02472-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...00_02492-1.jpg

The one thing I notice is the "JJCO" import stamp directly above the string of Lithgow proofs. Jovino put together quite a few good rifles, admitteldy "bitsers" out of our Aussie cast offs and quite a lot of them from old DP rifles. Some were good rifles DP'd for no other reason than DPs were needed - or so I've been told.

There were very, very few Lithgows allocated to the Darwin Police - so few that they took great care to mark them "DP" in case they ever lost them - this could be one of the last remaining Darwin Police rifles and you con the poor unsuspecting seller into thinking it is an 'un-safe' rifle - shame on you

Alan

You must have a sense of humor.

Pre 1931 we had the South Australian Police with responsibility for policing Palmerston/Darwin. Post 1931 we have had the Northern Territory Police.

Perhaps they needed rifles for the purpose of drills. :-)

Paul