1928 dated BSA Iraqi No.1 MKIII*

Being knee deep in Lee Enfields it is very rare that I find one of interest. However, a local shop recently had two Iraqi marked No.1 MkIII* rifles. The military receivers are dated 1928, military inspection marks, no commercial proofs, and serial numbers L4107 and L4274. There are no importer marks like the Iraqi guns imported in the 90's by Federal Ordnance. They do have the Iraqi triangle mark on the receiver flat and the barrel knox form.

The BSA history, "After the Battle", reportes that they had an order for 16,000 MkIII*s for Iraq beginning in 1935. There is no mention of a 1928 run. Perhaps the start of the order was filled with already marked 1928 receivers.

The $400 gun was complete but missing ID stock disc. I bought the $100 model missing seven screws and the magazine. It had the stock disc that seems proper for the gun as the inventory acceptance date is October 1928. I have yet to find out what unit S.N.P. was.


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why do people always sell these interesting things round you Paul. All we ever get are black pointy plasticky rifles and the odd century imported No.4 or JJovino speshial . Grrrrrr.

Could the 28 be stamped later? looks that way to me....and yes fasinating, soooo much fun.

:D

First 1928 dated English action I've seen. Did English factories manufacture SMLE actions every year between the two World Wars?

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Originally Posted by breakeyp

The BSA history, "After the Battle", reportes that they had an order for 16,000 MkIII*s for Iraq beginning in 1935. There is no mention of a 1928 run. Perhaps the start of the order was filled with already marked 1928 receivers.

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Your gun has come via the UK Government because it has Government ownership marks - Crowned GR and date. If it was part of an order from Iraq to BSA it would NOT have those marks and WOULD have British Proof marks - Crowned BM in this case.

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Originally Posted by Homer

First 1928 dated English action I've seen. Did English factories manufacture SMLE actions every year between the two World Wars?

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The BSA History book laments that they had no government orders from 1920 to 1936 and the tooling was mothballed and staff let go. Lack of experienced workers was a big problem when they had to tool for WWII. British factories did not make a receiver or bayonet matching every year.

The rifle was shipped with a blank disc and the receiving unit marked it with what they wanted. I would not expect the disc to have the same size shape marks as factory production markings.

Is does seem strange that the number 2933 and date appear to be pretty well washed or buffed out, while the SNP is not quite crystal clear, it's far better/clearer than the remainder of the markings

I see the know form has been linished too.

Looks like a butcher has tried to unbreech it with a stilson spanner THEN linished it!

I have a similar one. I have come up with the two best theories, at least for me. One is during the British mandate period of the 1920s it was captured and proofed. Or after the initial 1930's contact more surplus was sold to the Iraqis' and then proofed.

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Originally Posted by 3mctoledo

I have a similar one. I have come up with the two best theories, at least for me. One is during the British mandate period of the 1920s it was captured and proofed. Or after the initial 1930's contact more surplus was sold to the Iraqis' and then proofed.

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I don't see any Proof marks.

We used to encounter similar 'problems' with the old .38" Enfield revolvers that were supplied to Iraq.

There was a technical info bulletin published in the late 50's or 60's to the effect that many of these Iraqi supplied revolvers had been encountered in UK Military service (presumably from the days of pooled Ordnance stores or wartime happenings.....) that were not UK Military proofed but only civilian proofed prior to sale to Iraq. And it's true because we saw them in Iraq after Gulf 1. In fact I gave one such Iraqi marked and commercially proofed beast to the old RSAF collection

The Ordnance Bulletin of the 50's/60's stated that they had to be returned to Ordnance to be reproofed. I bet they were simply scrapped!

I went to a big arms dealer in England last year and there were hundreds and hundreds
of these barrelled actions for sale. Dates were 1928 1929. The barrels seemed reasonable but the trial bolt we took with us jumped the bolt way on most of them.
We were there most of the day and only found 14 serviceable action barrel combinations.
The ones we got have been a pig to head space. One strange thing was that some had butts fitted but they were so badly worn by dragging them along the ground that the brass butt plate had almost worn away and the wood had worn to a paddle shape.

I have one, BSA serial L472X dated 1936. Paid $200.00 for it. Spent around $50 to replace the extractor assembly and add a few screws and such that were missing. Looks good, was offered $500.00 for it while at the range. Good Shooter.

I have a 1935 BSA in the room somewhere all i remember is that the bolt matches the receiver however the bolt number are in Arabic and the receiver numbers are in English. It does have a disc on it with number but can not remember, if i have time i will pull it out and post some photos:runaway:

I went to the same dealer that 303 collector refers to about two years ago. At the time they had about a thousand rifles, all in lamentable condition, but many of which were worth restoring. I too, took along cleaning equipment & some tools, & out of the total found thirty odd SMLE's, four No4's & a Ross M1910 that were worth buying. The price was cheap, & oddly enough quite a few had very decent bores once cleaned, thus making them worth the asking price for the barrel alone. All in all I bought just over 40 incomplete rifles. IIRC the pile was made up of a mixture of late 1920's BSA Mk3*'s as alluded to above, 1937 to 1940 dated BSA Mk3's, & a plentiful supply of mainly post WW2 Ishapore rifles.
I am slowly rebuilding these rifles, & have one I am toiling with currently that will make a good budget priced shooter for somebody. Those that don't make the grade I'll just sell as deacts.

I was tempted to go back & buy more, if only for the spares, but I gather the prices have increased quite considerably since the time I visited.......

ATB.

BSA inter-war production, Graham Priest, quotes in his book The Spirit of The Pike, "In panic the Ministry of Supply telephoned instructions for BSA to increase No. 1 Mk III production even though they had only ordered 150,000 of these rifles from their Small Heath plant since 1919".