Enfield 1983 dated rifle??

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

Top rifle. A previously ZF rifle number that has been reallocated at the factory. This is done and was done when a licensing agreement regarding quantities/royalties is in being. Bren bodies being a good example

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How exactly would this work? Say a group of rifles comes to Lithgow for an FTR, and some fail inspection at the factory and are pronounced ZF or Z-BER...those condemned rifles' serials are then applied to new production rifles that are included with the rest of the FTR'd rifles? Is that right?

About the "Enfield 1983" rifle that started this thread, I had a thought. Hypothetical situation...an SLR is stolen and the new bearer, realizing they not only have a stolen firearm but stolen government property, obliterates not only the serial numbers, but all the obvious ID markings visible, including what's on the left side of the body. Rifle is subsequently recovered and returned to Army hands. Assuming the rifle is otherwise serviceable besides all the markings being "wiped", would the rifle be re-marked in a manner similar to what's on this mystery rifle? I vaguely remember word of a process for issuing new serial numbers in a case like this, but what about the rest of the markings?

Whatever the factory does is a matter for the individual factory but as the L1A1 and L7 guns are a 'licence build' and as such, the body is the accountable part up[on which royalties are levied, Lithgow, Enfield could simply scrap rifle AD12345 and rebuiold another rifle as 12345. And everyone is happy! At Enfield, we didn't run a FTR programme for the L1A1 rifles and a rifle, say, UB60A12345 found with a damaged beyond repair body would be certified destroyed at Ordnance. And that would be that! For a GPMG, where we DID run a full Enfield FTR prohramme, then if a GPMG UE69A12345 went in with, say, ovalised body rivet holes of cracked side plate/plates, then it was scrapped and the number never re-issued. The idea that we'd re-body was something totallt alien

You are talking about a rifle with a missing of lost number. A recovered rifle would be sent back through the full workshop system for a full ground-up rebuild. This was because you wouldn't know what'd happened to it while it was 'lost'. It might have been lost in the sea during a beach landing or during a river crossing...., you know the sort of thing. If the number was known, it'd be reinstated otherwise a new number would be allocated from the MoD security people who deal with such stuff

Strangely enough Peter, in NZ we repaired GPMG's with ovalised sideplate holes by redrilling and installing larger rivets, extending their life by a few years. That said, the old L7's have been scrapped and we have now gone to the latest FN produced MAG GPMG which seems to have solved the problem.:)

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Originally Posted by Woodsy

Strangely enough Peter, in NZ we repaired GPMG's with ovalised sideplate holes by redrilling and installing larger rivets, extending their life by a few years. That said, the old L7's have been scrapped and we have now gone to the latest FN produced MAG GPMG which seems to have solved the problem.:)

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Unfortunately the vendor selling the "83 Enfield" hasn't contacted me back, so I guess we will never get to the bottom of this interesting rifle.

I don't think the '83 Enfield was interesting as such except as a way of cooking the books! As it's aroused a degree of interest, maybe that's why it's all gone quiet.

Re the GPMG's. We found that you could only go up one rivet size on some of the rivets. The problems arose when the ovalised rivet holes became ovalised over the next rivet size diameter. Then it was the chop!

Well I for one would love go know how this rifle "came to be", nothing to do with the current owner/dealer, I am sure he bought it in the trade that way, why would he bother, its not a high cost item and a new spec deac Enfield or Lithgow would be worth the same really.

I wonder if someone with access to a significant stock of mixed L1A1 parts is assembling them for deac display??

I don't think that's against the rules is it, providing the paper trail is correct ???

It might explain the delibarete wrong date...

Very limited market for live rifles here.

Love to see who is listed as submitting on the deac cert!