help tell me about this rifle

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Please help identify my rifle

Welcome to the site ... :)

You can probably get some good information and background watching the video and review these articles in the MKL...

Milsurps Knowledge Library - Lee Enfield Story (Wallaceburg Museum)

Milsurps Knowledge Library - 1896 Mk1 MLE (Magazine Lee-Enfield)

Regards,
Doug

Very nice older than we are used to seeing MLE. Other than that, at least on my end the pics are rather dark and hard to see to positively identify your rifle. Are you missing the bolt or was it just fully open or removed for the pics? I did see the serial number and that should bring you a good bit of info on the rifle itself. As far as it's travels it looks to have a Canadian acceptance proof on the butt stock. More pics in better light with a full veiw of the rifle would be helpful. Congrats!

NICE Canadian markings and you do not often see two C broad arrow markings as well. The odd time on a M & D marked (Militia and Defense) marked you will find one C/I\ but seldom two and they appear to be different sizes as well.
A nice clean rifle. How about a picture of the rear sight as many in the condition as yours had a Ross Sunderland rear sight fitted for target shooting.
Not looked at the markings to determine the regiment but unless someone else jumps in I'll try later on. Time is very limited right now.

sorry im not real good with a camera. and i live in canada, probly why it has the marks.
you guys so far seem pretty smart, so whatever you can tell me would be good to know.
i found the volly sights pretty interesting for a rifle.
so, these are the real questions.
1-country or even factory of origin and actual year of production
2-what do i call it? mk1? number what?
3--how intact is it (im guessing front sight different and front wood cut down)
4-rarity is this an every day 303 or something of a gem?
5-aprox value incase i feel like trading up on it
you guys are awesome keep it up

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sorry, just check the link you offered to the mk1mle pretty informative

i guess mine is a fair bit earlier than the one in the arcticle as its serial nuber is 12942 and mine is 4897. or does that not mean much?

Nice piece.

Looks like the "termites" have nibbled off the front of the fore end.

The good news is that all the goodies still appear to be present at the back end. Ditto the dial sight.

A GOOD stock maker could graft on a piece of matching wood to restore the fore end. The usual place to form a join is under the band around the fore end. (With any luck, nobody has trimmed the muzzle end of the barrel). The nose-cap / sword bar and associated screws MAY be found at one of the better Lee Enfield sources. See Brian Dick for starters.

As 1896 is the second year of manufacture. At manufacture, it would originally have had a clearing rod fitted. This was stored in the fore end and thus the original nose cap would have had a hole in the end of the bayonet standard and the fore end would have been machined to accommodate the rod. Inside the fore end, just forward of the dial sight, there should be a small, threaded plate inset into the wood. This is the securing nut for the male threaded end of the clearing rod.

Clearing rods were abolished in 1899 and the rods withdrawn from service. Factory-made Mk1* rifles had no allowance in the fore end timber for the rod. The nut in the fore end as well as the hole in the tip of the sword bar on the nose cap were also deleted. Rifles "upgraded" from Mk1 to Mk1* often show where things have been and sometimes the "*" marking after the "1" on the RHS of the butt socket is a bit "wonky".

Thanks for the good info, so is it worth adding wood? Cost benifit I mean, cuz I don't know if it's a poor mans hunting rifle, or belongs in someone's collection

Your final question about a poor man's hunting rifle or a collector's piece is up to you. I would think this is a MkVI ammo rifle and may be rebarreled at some point to handle MkVII but I would determine that first. Metford 7 groove rifling or Enfield 5 groove is another determination. Gauge the muzzle may be a good sign for wear but I learned just the other day that some Mk1 barrels were reverse tapered after the first 10 inches of bullet travel down the barrel. So a gauging of the muzzle may produced false results. Myself, if I wanted a hunting rifle, there are many sportered No.4s out there which are better equipped for a hunting/truck rifle. I personally would want this for a collectors rifle and load up MkVI equivilent ammo to putz around with it at the range but that is just my opinion. Others will vary!:eek: Stock parts will be hard to find but not impossible. :crying: What you could do that seems to be fairly popular is to make up a Lee Speed copy of the same era BSA sporting rifle. You have all of the basic parts ready to go.:confused:

What's the barrel length? If its full length I'd restore it, its a nice rifle.

Not a bad idea at the end there, I'll look into it, as for not using the right ammo? I assume/hope it's fine as its been a hunting rifle for years, and very accuate. So I gather resale would be 250-400?

---------- Post added at 08:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:44 PM ----------

It's a 30 inch barrel

It looks like a fairly easy restoration. Like has been said, graft a piece of wood on the fore-end and a nose cap. Nose caps aren't that hard to find. Since its been upgraded to MkI* you don't need to find a clearing rod.

So when I'm searching for parts, what is it generally called? Mk1 number what? Or mk1 mle?

Trying to find info on the stock markings, can't seem to find any. M&D and under the Crest L1.
Can anyone read the crest? I'd like to find out what unit had this rifle. It's all small communities in southern Canada here

Technically, it is a:

Rifle, Magazine, Lee Enfield, Mark 1, that has been updated to Mark 1 *("star").

Probably more than a few suitable nose caps, that have been removed from other "sporter" jobs, can be found in the spare-parts boxes of gunsmiths and older gun shops in general.

Ask around your local friendly gun shops for a GOOD local stockmaker to do the restoration of the fore end. A good splice under the sling swivel band will be pretty much invisible.

Even if the bore is a bit (or a lot) ratty, the fact of it being a piece of real, local history compensates somewhat.

So, what's your next Lee Enfield project?


Cheers from Oz,
Bruce

The "crest" is the RSAF rondel in this case I believe it would be Enfield. Under it is a 1*. The 1 under that denotes it as a first line arm.

What's with this 'Reverse Taper'? sounds like something I'd expect from the oval chamber source.:confused:

V.F. with a Canadian background could well be the Victoria Fusiliers. See this link http://www.navalandmilitarymuseum.or...ce/vicreg.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by muffett.2008

What's with this 'Reverse Taper'?

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Could it be the groove taper? Not sure from where the 10 inches before tapering starts would be derived.

If it's the groove, by the time the bullet gets to the end of the barrel, it would just fall out, if it was the lands, pressure would increase in the thin end of the barrel.
Methinks this is a furphy.

Early SMLEs had their bores lapped to produce a taper in the rifling. This was first done with the initial 1000 trials rifles.

This taper was at the MUZZLE end and meant that the bore diameter was enlarged (at the muzzle) from 0.3025"-0.3045" to 0.304"- 0.306".

This was all tied in with trying to raise the muzzle velocity to that of the "long" Lee Enfield. Note that we are talking about the Mk6 round-nosed bullet here.

Apparently, full details are in the "specifications". If anyone has a copy of the Spec. data for the Mk1 SMLE, it will all be in there.

A lot of this is tied in with the comparative trialling of the L.E. rifle and the "new" Short rifle. The L.E. had a long leade, much longer than probably necessary for even the old Mk6 type round nosed bullets. It was also much more gently tapered than one sees on later SMLE barrels.

However, SMLE barrels continued to be throated to accept the Mk6 bullet LONG after that projectile had passed from frontline service. However the rifling in later SMLE barrel starts more abruptly than the earlier Lee Enfields.

What I suspect they were trying to do by tapering the muzzle end, was to reduce the friction of the bullet on the lands and thus raise the muzzle velocity. The only problem was that once the very hard jacket had engaged the rifling at the rear, it was hardly likely to keep expanding as it traveled up the bore, especially as the pressure DECREASES as the bullet travels forward.

In the trials of 1902, it was also found that "max" bullets 0.312" dia. shot better than "min" 0.301" dia. bullets. Not only that, but barrels made to the "low" limit, shot better than those of "high" diameter limit (Surprise, surprise!!). Finally, rifles with a "short" leade AND a square-faced muzzle, shot a "figure of merit" TWICE as good as "conventional" barrels. That last one is no news to anyone who has shot target or bench-rest rifle in the last fifty years, but it was a major discovery in 1902.

The upshot of all this was that the bore was eventually left parallel (within manufacturing tolerances) but the GROOVES continued to be tapered. This tapering was eventually dropped in 1917.

You can imagine the ludicrous amount of time and precision workmanship involved in TAPER lapping the grooves without affecting the lands. If this were being done on barrels cut to length, it would also have been nearly impossible to avoid uneven belling of the muzzle as the lapping slug ran out. These days, match barrels are lapped BEFORE trimming, profiling, chambering, and crowning. They are also lapped to ensure almost perfect parallelism, NOT taper, especially outwards taper at the muzzle.