Looking for a front volley sight piece to make a ShtLE I*** complete

Hi,
Just purchased a 1906 ShtLE I*** with the older rear sight protector, volley sights, rear windage and mag cutoff. She's a beauty(pic can be posted after I have cleaned her up a bit, shes covered in old black grease from neglect)

She's complete with everything except the front volley sight pointer. Its just the bit that moves and the attachment bit that would make her my holy grail smelly.

I not against buying a repro but I wanted to exhaust my resources online first. Nobody carries just the pointer and screw online other than repros:(

So what I'm asking this fine community:
Can anyone spare a few parts for a near perfect piece? She and I would appreciate it.

I'm new to milsurps.com but not to to other forums and collecting. Thank you all for any support!

Justin

When you need a reproduction ..... try DS Solutions on the W.W.W.
based in Kent England (almost in France but don't hold that against him..)
They had a couple of foresight arms complete with screws and springs, the web site is undergoing a rebuild at the moment, just send him an email and he will let you know what he has.

I didn't see anything on the website but I'll send him an email. Thanks for the info!

I know he will be getting restocked (if he's sold out of what he had) for the War and Peace show towards the end of next month...

Look around for the DP fore-ends as I found an early Mark 111 still with the volley plate and pointer but stamped DP on the bottom. Numrich has had pointers at times too.

Do you have a ER or CR marked 1906 Mark 1*** which are common in the USA, the Mark 1*** rifles without the CR, ER or G are not common here

New Zealand will be your best bet for one.

I have a ER marked 1906 mark***. How common are they? I don't see them all that often but I have seen that a few thousand came in around the 60's?

I'll try to find something on the Kiwi web in the meantime:)

Thank you!

You could try Phil Rose - he has a large stock of spares for all .303s - PM me if you want his contact address.
Rob

You might want to consider that part addition. If you have an ER gun, many of them have the pointer or the pointer tip (the little round rivet sight mark) removed. They were removed by the Irish army on guns issued in WWII, or so it seems based on a few pictures of the rifles where they can be seen. In essence your restoration is changing the last deliberately issued state as it came out of Irish army stock in 1960.

Check out gun boards, there are a few detailed posts on the rifles in a sticky labeled FF rifles or something like that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

They were removed by the Irish army on guns issued in WWII,

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I'm intrigued as to what the Irish did in WW II, apart from guard the odd British downed pilot....?

Well for the most part they sat out the war, in their so called "emergency", but had the Germans or English invaded they would have put up some kind of fight. In the case of England invading it would have not been long, as they never had much in the way of ammunition, being dependent on UK supplies.

The orientation was, at least outwardly against the Germans, but the Germans never had the means to threaten either the UK or Ireland with a serious invasion.

I think at peak strength the Irish had something like 2 divisions worth of men (mobile) and large numbers of stationary Home guard battalions.

They were short on rifles, having only around 42,000 Enfield's of all type of which around 28,700 were considered serviceable in September of 1939. Hence the SMLE MK I*** rifles had to be issued when the were capable of being used.

Few pictures exist of post 1939 issue of the SMLE MK I*** rifles, but there are some shown with the rifle:

from the book Step together" 1999

Front cover shows an Infantry unit with quite a number of SMLE MKI*** along with Lewis guns (Unit not identified)

On page 63 one out of 3 rifles shown in sailors hands are SMLE MK I***

On page 86 there is a shot of the 20th Infantry battalion and at least 2 of the 9 rifles viable are SMLE MK I*** rifles from 1942.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frederick303

Well for the most part they sat out the war, in their so called "emergency", but had the Germans or English invaded they would have put up some kind of fight. In the case of England invading it would have not been long, as they never had much in the way of ammunition, being dependent on UK supplies.

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Fredrick, you've left me somewhat speechless!

Is there seriously a view in the US that Britain would have even contemplated invading Eire??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Strangely Brown

Fredrick, you've left me somewhat speechless!

Is there seriously a view in the US that Britain would have even contemplated invading Eire??

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Well, they have done that to some other places in the past.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MSW2

Well, they have done that to some other places in the past.

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We're talking about the last century, not the century before!

There were contingency plans to invade Southern Ireland. This was in two parts. Specifically if they allowed German submarines to use their ports or allowed the Country to be used in any other way by the Germans the Country would have been blockaded at sea and if that failed (and it's extremely hard to see that failing.....) the structurally weakened Country would have been invaded There was also a severe contingency plan to severely punish them should they ever shoot down or harm an allied plane entering or returning from the Atlantic along/through the specified corridor. This corridor into the Atlantic from Northern Ir across Southern Ir was put forward as what you could/might call a fiat-accompli. So far as I'm aware, apart from the fiat-accompli or 'or else....' aspect of the 'agreement', it was never abused by either side

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Strangely Brown

We're talking about the last century, not the century before!

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1899 - 1903. One example that comes to mind. Close enough :)
With governments things that the man in the street will not even consider often happen.

Wow,
I've read some of this information on the other forum posts but didn't know why. This is some neat history of the rifles and their origins.

I'll look up the pedigree and original issue state of the rifles now before continuing restoration. This should be an interesting undertaking.

It has both the front volley post and mag cutoff missing. it will be interesting to find out all of the history on these rifles.

Thank you all for the info!