Why rifles are painted green, handguard ears cut off, No.4 mag alterations , etc.

I posted this earlier with little response. I realized it may have been due my title. I think people what to know this based on other posts. This is an experiment to see how much difference a change in title can make.


Comments at another web site has prompted me to dig into my files of ACI's I copied on several visits to the pattern room. I trust that these will suffice to settle future and past issues. Army Council Instructions are publications of changes to material and personnel processing to be done immediately and may find their way eventually into the List of Changes. Comments are paraphrased.

1943 dated ACI 869 Split or broken legs of No.1 rifle hand guards will be repaired by removal and smoothing of both legs to match attached sketch.

1941 dated ACI 2066 Breaking down of Rifles No.3 (Pattern '14) Rifles with damaged bolts, plugs, bolt breech, ejectors Mk II and strikers MKII will be sent to Weedon for breaking down into useable parts.

1941 dated ACI 2128 Outer surface rifle components normally browned (blued) upon repair will not be browned but painted Khaki green. Back sight and front sight will not be painted.

1943 dated ACI 1550 Some early US and Britishicon No.4 magazines rear lips of case foul in the receiver recesses. 0.20" material removed from the front of the rear lips as read from the rear of the mag case. I wonder if this is the cause for the "B" mark on cases and sometime seen on Savage rifles???????

1940 dated ACI 1444 For rust protection of rifle barrels and associated components in lieu of annual mineral jelly application, affected components will be painted Khaki green or several other makes of paint. This will be carried out AT ALL STATIONS AT HOME OR ABROAD. This is not just for jungle operations.


]Complete Xerox copies of these ACIs are available on application to the Imperial War Museum Library. I do not know what the current price schedule is.

Thanks for the info.
Jon

You can discover a lot from some of these documents. A mate showed me one about the painting of barrels from here (Australia) which stated it was to replace the requirement for coating the metalwork inside the wood with mineral jelly every time the rifle was worked on by armourers. As the instruction above, it stated "all stations, home and abroad"
Finally put to bed the "jungle green paint" myth... for those who paid attention at the time anyway...

Paul, is there a searchable archive of titles or do they have to be be accurately quoted to get the results from a search?

I had a hand written list of numbers and brief description that I acquired somewhere. I am not aware of an index. It may exist at the IWM Library or you just go and they bring you a book and you browse. Record the number you want printed and it would be sent out bye and bye. Information is there but it isn't handed to you. You have to research. The helpers there aren't gun people.

We still have ACI's, now known as DCI's, but they rarely cover small arms related stuff except to declare certain weapons obsolescent or obsolete.