SMLE Oddball Sniper?

I recently bought an SMLE fitted with a Winchester scope center mounted not side mounted as seems to be the norm. The rifle was made by BSA, it's serial number has no prefix or suffix and it carries a South African acceptance mark, broad arrow inside a U and is in very good condition. The scope appears to be commercial Winchester, the only marks on it are X-8and is about 18 inches long. The mount, which I am told was designed by Parker Hale is in fact engraved BSA and appears to be serial numbered to the rifle. I was told from the dealer that I bought it from that it had come from a museum in Brighton (UK) and it had come to them from Iraq some time in the dim and distant past but how true that is I have no idea. Can anyone shed some light on how the rifle came to be in this configeration and who might have done it ? Any additional information about possible date of manufacture of the rifle would be appreciated. Photos attatched.

The "XSAW" indicates that the rifle is one of those recently imported into UK from South Africa. Most of these seem to have come from Police stocks, and are usually taken-into-service commercials and refurbished bitsas built by the SA armourers. Since these SA imports have only really been around for the past few years - ie since they surplussed out - I'd hazard a guess that someone in UK has recently been a bit creative in making up a "sniper" rifle.

Bring it along to the next arms fair at Bisley and we can check it out.

p.s. many/most of these SA surplus rifles have been through Holts auctioneers. You might try to see if they have the rifle number on their database.

p.p.s. apart from the barrel, is the rifle in proof? Are the marks on the bolt and bolt head Birmingham or London?

Thanks for the info Thunderbox attatched is photo of bolthead proof mark.

To the best of my knowledge no one has successfully deciphered the serial number ranges used by BSA for their commercial rifles to the point where a year of manufacture could be pinned down. There has been a couple of studies done by individuals but with no factory data it remains a mystery. They didn't even date their barrels, and rifles of any prior configuration requested could be built up so model is no help either.

Although slightly tangential to this thread and for members who haven't seen it, check the MKL for an article accompanied by a 240 pic photo montage on ...

1916 ShtLE (Short Lee-Enfield) No.1 MkIII* Sniper Rifle
c/w Winchester A5 (5 Power) Offset Scope (Mfg by RSAF Enfield)

Regards,
Doug

To be brutally honest and frank the notion that a telescope could be secured to a rifle with a mount fixed by a cross pin through the rearsight bracket is ludicrous. The accumulative error within such a scheme would ........................, well! As for any notion of structural rigidity........., same again. You could say that such a scheme has structural FLEXABILITY built in -, by the bucketfull! That wouldn't even get out of the starting blocks as a sniper rifle. In my honest opinion and being a tad frank again Buccaneer, I wouldn't be taken in by all that. IN fact, I was trying to think of some simple engineering example to compare it with ........... but I can't! I'd like to see the action of the telescope on firing. I bet it's humping up and down like a bulldogs boxxxxxs

Sorry to be the first to bring bad tidings on this warm Easter day but I bet I won't be the last

The scope base appears to be an exact copy of the Parker Hale/A G Parker one designed for the WA5 during the great war (See pic) and available afterwards. Probably one of the first "No gunsmithing" mounts? Quite a few of these bases have been copied recently.

For 30/- (that's £1:50p) I'd say that they were robbing you.....................

The rifle is a BSA commercial, the SA govt bought thousands of these after WW1 and they were used in WW2 and by home guard (National Rifle Volunteers) and in the strategic war reserve - often found in good condition. The XSAW is new to me but probably means Ex - Suid Afrikaanse Weermag (S A Army).
The BSA commercial barrel looks like a South African Army re-barrel job.
As far as I know, there was no S A military use of rifles scoped /mounted like this, but TerryLee who posts here is the world expert in these things - PM him?
I would humbly suggest the Brighton museum story is spurious.

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Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Thanks for the info Thunderbox attatched is photo of bolthead proof mark.

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The new London Proof is very strong circumstantial evidence that the rifle is indeed one of the SA imports that have come through Holts in the past year or two.

Nice rifle, but the museum/Iraq story is most likely - as my Hong Kong orderly used to say - "borrocks!"....

I don't believe that scope mount set-up is all that bad. I've seen far worse sold on the commercial market. The forward jacking screw and (hopefully) a reasonably tight fitting cross pin would do most of the required locating. However, the single rear screw WOULD require a good installation job.

Is it "military" grade? No. But neither is the scope! (Of course, mounting an A5 on the side of the rear sight protector and receiver AND then putting it in the trenches seems a bit mad at this late date, too.)

If you want to see some really scary mounts, see Brophy's '03 Springfield book. Frankford Arsenal test stuff included. Oy!

It would appear that the single rear screw that sits on top of the barrel isn't fixed to the barrel in any way JM. It is to a) give a degree of lift at the rear in order to impart some spring tension to the backsight bed spring and b) maybe allow the graticle to be set a bit centrally prior to zeroing. But how you'd do 'b' with the sight fitted is anyones guess. From what I can gather, the rear screw isn't fixed in any way to the knox form, it's just sat on top of it, ready to whip the bar and sight.

The trouble with the setup without a rear suppoost is even a .001" degree of play on the mount and axis pin, whether up/down or left/right is that this play (very simplified of course) becomes multiplied/increased by the length if the bar at the ocular lens and multiplied by XYZ at the target.

I hear what ou're saying about the dire quality of some of the earlier SMLE sniper mounts,but at least there was a degree of inbuilt strength. Anyway, we've established that this mount is an inter war commercial expensive fix. And good of them to try - albeit not a GOOD try!

Again, another example of "Buy the rifle-not the story."

At any of the Gun Shows where I have taken a table and offered items for sale, I have always stuck to one principle, and that is ' answer any questions as truthfully as you can'.

When asked about a rifle or item, I only restate what I know or was told about that particular one. The follow up question by the prospective buyer is usually on the lines of "Are you telling the truth?"

My answer to that is "Yes, because I am lazy!" Which gives a surprised look.

I qualify that by telling the person that if I tell them what I know about the item, then three years later when they come back and ask about it, I don't have to try to remember what I had told them.

And, just passing the 70 mark, I find that it is getting more difficult each month to remember a lot of stuff.:lol:
.

Couldn't agree more. Of the VERY few original SMLE/WA5 mounted snipers I've seen, all were fitted with the typical Whitehead Brothers offset mounts as per Badger's photo's of good lady's rifle! I very much doubt the over bore rails were ever adopted for sniping use.

ATB

Many thanks to all who have taken the trouble to read and comment on this thread. The information given to me at the time of the sale was "honest" in the sense that this is what the seller had been told he did not pretend that it was true only that it was what he had been told. I paid what I considered to be a reasonable price for the rifle and bought it because it was "different" not because it may or may not be worth a lot of money. I have yet to get the rifle onto the range but when I do I will post my findings on the mounting systems performance, either way I have a rifle in my collection that will talked about for some time and one that I hope will give me hours of fun.
The one thing that does trouble me though is if the mount is a copy of an origional Parker Hale item why bother to engrave it with BSA and a serial number or did BSA actually make copies themselves????

Somewhere I've got some photos I took some years of one of these mounts on a rifle belonging to Adrian Dagger. I did upload them to a hosting site, which folded some years ago taking them with it. Must find the prints.

This, on the other hand, is entirely made up, quite recently, by a talented retired engineering worker who brought it up yesterday. The Aldis sights were available as parts from the trade into at least the 1950s.

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

It would appear that the single rear screw that sits on top of the barrel isn't fixed to the barrel in any way JM. It is to a) give a degree of lift at the rear in order to impart some spring tension to the backsight bed spring and b) maybe allow the graticle to be set a bit centrally prior to zeroing. But how you'd do 'b' with the sight fitted is anyones guess. From what I can gather, the rear screw isn't fixed in any way to the knox form, it's just sat on top of it, ready to whip the bar and sight.

The trouble with the setup without a rear support is even a .001" degree of play on the mount and axis pin, whether up/down or left/right is that this play (very simplified of course) becomes multiplied/increased by the length if the bar at the ocular lens and multiplied by XYZ at the target.

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Ach, yes, missed the obvious there! Never mind...

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Originally Posted by Valleysniper

The scope base appears to be an exact copy of the Parker Hale/A G Parker one designed for the WA5 during the great war (See pic) and available afterwards. Probably one of the first "No gunsmithing" mounts? Quite a few of these bases have been copied recently.

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Interesting photo that; looks vaguely familiar! :D

Not much of a system, but then the Winchester A5 was not much of a scope! Still, not much worse than the Whitehead pattern that attached to the backsight protector; a part that is not known for the rigidity of its fixing, and to the stock no less. ;)

If they had put a spring steel strap around the Nock's Form and tightened it up with a screw, rather like those WWII German scope rings, they would have been onto something. And with a fine opposing windage adjustment screws on each side of the backsight base instead of just a pin going through, it would have been quite useable by the standards of the time, and could have actually been collimated after fitting with just a screwdriver, as the screws at either end would have allowed for vertical adjustment as the others would for horizontal. Such is hindsight. Would have been rather prone to bend in the vertical plane though.

Come to think of it, they could have put the rear foot right on the receiver ring and avoided the taper of the Nock's Form. Would have meant relieving the wood slightly where the spring wouldn't follow the concave shape under the body, and putting a hole in the spring for the forward guard screw projection, but probably could have been done.

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Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Thanks for the info Thunderbox attatched is photo of bolthead proof mark.

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Hi I have some information on your scop mount if you require it.

I borrowed Adrian Dagger's original Parker Hale mount and had half a dozen copies made, Adrian having his original back plus one copy. The one in the thread has machining marks just like the ones I had made. Therefore I think the BSA marks are fake and added in the last few years. Adrian seemed to be able to get some reasonable scores with his set up. These mounts were always designed to be paired up with the Winchester scopes. The way the scope slides in the mount probably considerably lessons the forces acting on the rail so may help to make the whole set up work more effectively. If you read Parker Hale's advert carefully they seem to claim they they designed this during WW1 - I can only guess that would be for a military application.

Buccaneer,

The scope on your rifle although similar in appearance to the WA5, WB5, WB3 etc is in fact a model known simply as the Winchester 8x. The following text is reproduced from "Old Rifle Scopes" authored by Nick Strobel. ISBN 0-87341-830-1

Quote "In 1939 Winchester introduced an 8x scope specifically for its model 75 target rifle.This scope is unmarked except for an 8x on the objective bell and has a characteristic japaned brass tube that gives a greenish-black colour to the tube finish. The stamped sheet metal mounts are marked "Winchester". The last listing I have for the 8x is in the 1944 Gun Digest" End quote.

Winchester 8x (1939 - 1945)

Magnification - 8x.
Field of view - Not given.
Luminosity - Not given.
Eye relief - Not given.
Length - Approx 18". (Roughly 450mm in new money).
Weight - Not given.
Tube diameter - 0.750" (Roughly 18mm in new money).

Cheers,

Simon.

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Originally Posted by Valleysniper

The scope base appears to be an exact copy of the Parker Hale/A G Parker one designed for the WA5 during the great war (See pic) and available afterwards. Probably one of the first "No gunsmithing" mounts? Quite a few of these bases have been copied recently.

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I guess I should make a proper scan of that page seeing as how the photo has got around.

While our "creative" friends took the trouble to use some old looking number stamps for the "113", they forgot one or two other details from that page; which I'll forbear to enumerate, lest their future efforts include them!

Their machining and finishing just isn't up to 1930s standards either, nor is the bluing.

Probably it was thought cleverer to mark BSA than Parker Hale; and more sort of "military" looking.:rolleyes: