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Hello
Can anyone tell me anything about this enfield? I have searched the net for ages almost, so i decided to join this forum, thought this was the best place to look :)
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firstly it is total garbage and you need to send it to me. :)
it is a 1915 Lithgow (Australia) manufactured Sht LE (SMLE) no1 mk3, that has been sporterised.
the 3MD marking shows it was issued in/to? the 3rd military district, the state of Victoria.
the milled sight protector is era correct, the trigger has the star-A stamp indicating an early Lithgow made part. it should be on most of the original parts.
edit. is it still chambered in .303?
this should probably be in the lee enfield forum, hopefully one of the moderators will move it.
Welcome to the forum, this one is a good candidate for refurbishing to original wood. You'll need a couple of metal parts too. What shape is the barrel? Do you shoot this one?
---------- Post added at 03:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 PM ----------
[/COLOR]The weapon was last fired 4 years ago, so it still works. The barrel is in good condition but we have not been able to find any reference to similar barrel mounting on any other enfields we have looked at online. This raises the question if we´ve missed it or if it´s perhaps some sort of prototype or even a fake? And thanks :)Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
---------- Post added at 03:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:18 PM ----------
Sorry we don´t know anything about guns, what is a chamber .303? :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by henry r
What they're trying to relate is that the pictured relic was once an Australian military rifle, which was made with a breech chamber fitted to a cartridge known as the ".303 British", .303" being the nominal diameter of the hole bored lengthwise through the barrel.
Some time after leaving military service, various portions of the wood and a few metal parts were removed to make it resemble the usual configuration of a civilian hunting rifle ("sporter"). In addition, a rubber pad was fitted to the butt end of the wooden stock.
Before alteration, it appeared very much like this example -
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...18038250-1.jpg
Over here we would refer to your Lee Enfield as "sporterized".
My Lithgow when purchased
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...IMG_2961-1.jpg
As restored
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...IMG_3029-1.jpg
Early Lithgows that are still surviving are getting scarce it would be a worthwhile project to get back to original guise, the milled rear sight protectors if original to the rifle will have the "A" and seven pointed star on the left side if it is not there or has EFD there then its not original as a point of interest the Lithgow factory only opened in 1912 with 190 employees.
Allot of the early stuff would have gone to Gallipoli and France so the attrition rate would have been fairly high among the early production rifles.
So depending on the kick pad and hopefully they have not cut the butt section you may just need a rear butt plate & screws, top woods, lower fore wood & the metal hardware to finish it off just google No 1 MkIII schematics to build up the list with what you need that is missing. As for not being fired for 4 years a good ploy would be get it checked out by a gunsmith, as if they used Mk VII WWII ammo the corrosive primers did not do justice to the barrel as the primers contained mercury which created salts that rusted the barrels rather quickly (British military .303" Mk 7 and 7z ball normally has mercuric and corrosive primers. The corrosive element is Potassium Chlorate, which leaves a residue of Potassium Chloride in the barrel: similar in effect to common salt)
If it was modern ammo no problems really just hopefully the gun was stored correctly i.e no moisture.
Depending on whether you wish to go for WWI parts is up to you but it is a slow and costly exercise or go for a mix cheaper and faster as allot of ftr'ed rifles lost their original parts as they were not interested in keeping them all the same just repaired and out to do the business again.
There are plenty of persons here that will help you along your journey with acquiring the bits probably the woods will be an expensive piece, there are plenty of threads on these rifles on this site take the time to learn about them it is a fascinating journey Good Luck.:thup:
Thanks for all your good advices, we are considering getting it restored. So glad we found this forum, very interesting to know something about this enfield, what happened to it and where it´s from! :)
Have a great day :wave: