What can you tell me about this No1 MkIII?

I bought this rifle a while back, but I have some questions about it still.

The wood is completely bare of any stamps except for a small V over 16 behind the trigger guard. The receiver, bolt, barrel and rear sight are all matching. The magazine and nose cap have no markings.

Here are some photos of the various stamps on it. As you can see, the only marking on the butt socket says BSA Co. The usual crown and year markings are absent. Would love to know what year this rifle was manufactured. Other stamps are visible in the attached photos. V over 19 is the lowest number. Would that make this a 1919 rifle? The letters AO are also stamped on the barrel. And there's also an unclear stamp which might be J5 or possibly 55. Is the butt disk authentic? I do understand the 303 Nitro Proof stamp, but there's also a small crown over the letters BM which I don't know the meaning of.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Just a wild guess, but could it be a commercial BSA? More detail shots of the action itself wouldn't hurt.

I'm guessing a commercial BSA circa 1907 -1915? It has the mag cut off installed. Even if thats a late re attachment from another owner the rifle was still machined for it, that brings it to 1915 or earlier when that slot began to be omitted. The nose cap is early too. The brass disc has a rack number, real enough, but thats no special ID, except its one of a thousand. The bolt striker knob is post 1918?-ww2.
The serial number in full can often give us real info, but BSA commercials are famous for being hard to get much info compared to military stamped ones.
Its a nice looking rifle though, well done.

From the format of the butt disk, I'd hazard a guess that the rifle serial number is something like 5xxxx - a 5-digit number beginning with a "5"?

Now that's just scary!

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Originally Posted by Baal

I do understand the 303 Nitro Proof stamp, but there's also a small crown over the letters BM which I don't know the meaning of.

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Birmingham Military proof. Used after 1916 on rifles chambered for military ammunition. The NITRO PROOF is part of that mark.

Those marks and the lack of military marks imply that that your rifle is a between the wars BSA Commercial. (Magazine cutoffs were re-instituted after the Great War.) However I would have expected the knox form of the barrel to have the BSA logo and a date.

Does the bolt have a BSA logo?

Both the bolt and the top of the knox form have the BSA stacked rifles logo. But there's no date on it anywhere.

And yes, it has a five digit serial number 59405 on the receiver, barrel, bolt and rear sight.

You guys are good. :) Thanks!

Is it one of the ex-Bahrain ones, mostly with mismatched bolts, mostly with worn barrels, that have been knocking around for a few years now?

^
The bolt matches, as does the barrel and rear sight. The barrel is bright with sharp rifling. I slugged it and it measures .311. Overall it's in beautiful shape.

My Bahrainian is a mint as you can get in an 85 year old rifle! One of the nicest rifles I've got. With the cut off, and the brass butt unit disk. Estimated to be around 1925 time frame. I think the guys at BSA did this on purpose, just to mess with us!:madsmile:
His rifle looks a LOT like mine......

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Originally Posted by Mk VII

Is it one of the ex-Bahrain ones, mostly with mismatched bolts, mostly with worn barrels, that have been knocking around for a few years now?

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So if I understand you folks correctly, BSA commercially sold a batch of these rifles to Bahrain in the 20s? Were they used by the military there? As Limpetmine notes about his own, this rifle is about as close to mint as I could hope for in an 80 or 90 year old gun.

a ha, see, I learn something new everyday, BSA commercials weren't only pre ww1, good to know...

Here is a very poor picture of mine, a cell phone shot, but perhaps you can get the idea!
I'll post more later, when I have a decent camera at hand. It is interesting to see the rough rasp marks on yours-mine has the same and I was wondering if some Bahrainian bubba had his way with some hand tools!
I'll bet yours and mine saw some range time together, if not only rack time. :super: IIRC, BSA made rifles all through the between the wars time frame, and were notorious for not dating or serializing them in any way that makes sense now. ATB!
/limpetmine

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Baal

I bought this rifle a while back, but I have some questions about it still.

The wood is completely bare of any stamps except for a small V over 16 behind the trigger guard. The receiver, bolt, barrel and rear sight are all matching. The magazine and nose cap have no markings.

Here are some photos of the various stamps on it. As you can see, the only marking on the butt socket says BSA Co. The usual crown and year markings are absent. Would love to know what year this rifle was manufactured. Other stamps are visible in the attached photos. V over 19 is the lowest number. Would that make this a 1919 rifle? The letters AO are also stamped on the barrel. And there's also an unclear stamp which might be J5 or possibly 55. Is the butt disk authentic? I do understand the 303 Nitro Proof stamp, but there's also a small crown over the letters BM which I don't know the meaning of.

Thanks in advance for any info.

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Baal,

Its normally very hard to identify a year & customer for a BSA commercial rifle - BSA used all sorts of serial number sequences (probably a different one for each repeat customer), and the rifles themselves were often sold by "resellers" such as department stores and gun shops - many of which offered a custom service for some of the components (eg you could order a long Lee target rifle with a Metford barrel with/without safety, with/without volley sights, etc, as late as the 1930s).

However, there are at least two very large contracts that are readily available - one is the Siamese "smiling Tiger" batch (where the rifles & '07 bayonets are embossed with the Siam Royal Cipher of a Tiger's head) and the other is the "Gulf states" batch. A few years ago, several thousand No1s entered the milsurp market from Bahrain. These are all BSA rifles of the inter-war MkIII pattern, all have a number in the range 5xxxx, and all have the brass butt disk marked with a rack number in large font. Your rifle is one of these.

Sadly, the importer didn't bother to try to match up the bolts and rifles, so only about 1 in 10 of these rifles has kept its bolt. These are otherwise excellent rifles - as they are one of the few batches of No1 where the rifles have not been rebuilt since they left the BSA factory. The forend fit and wood part matching is very nice to have in original condition.

Most of these rifles ended up in the UK de-act market, but quite a few seem to have been shipped over to USA.

There are also bayonets, numbered in a similar font - most likely numbered to the rifle.

You guys with commercial BSA rifles, would you mind sharing the number that is stamped on the top-rear flat part of the action, where the bolt slides in? (You need to raise the bolt handle to see it).

I've been trying to work out a method of dating the commercial guns and every little bit of data puts it one step closer.

Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jc5

You guys with commercial BSA rifles, would you mind sharing the number that is stamped on the top-rear flat part of the action, where the bolt slides in? (You need to raise the bolt handle to see it).

I've been trying to work out a method of dating the commercial guns and every little bit of data puts it one step closer.

Thanks!

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There's nothing stamped there on mine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jc5

You guys with commercial BSA rifles, would you mind sharing the number that is stamped on the top-rear flat part of the action, where the bolt slides in? (You need to raise the bolt handle to see it).

I've been trying to work out a method of dating the commercial guns and every little bit of data puts it one step closer.

Thanks!

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I looked at the flat on my fultons bsa, nothing there but one little mark. I think I'll crawl right over the rifle looking for anything, I'll pic the lot too.