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I was researching a Winchester Model 95 in .303 British when I found this gem for sale:
BSA Co Lee-Speed No. 2 Officer's Carbine - wasn't on my bucket list, or even on the radar ...
Not perfect, but still a heart-stopper. It wasn't listed as sold, but unavailable - quantity zero (0). I couldn't determine its status. When I was finally able to get hold of the owner, he told me it had been sold.
Missed it by that much ....
Too bad, that would have been a neat little carbine...very scarce.
Tabernac - close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Interesting the No1 looks extremely like a lee Medford carbine I have, shoots beautifully out to 400. It has no military or service markings though. Do you know what rifling these in the pamphlet had?
The knox form of the item under discussion is stamped "Nitro Proof" as well as "E" for Enfield rifling.
I find THE U.K. HISTORIC ARMS RESOURCE CENTRE - MINIATURE CALIBRE RIFLES REFERENCE FACILITY
site invaluable. Check out the 1908 "BSA Catalogue of Military, Target, and Sporting Rifles".
BSA small-bore target rifles, sights and accesories
Why do you think the "E" (in a circle) on this carbine means Enfield rifling? I'm sure the rifling is 5-groove Enfield, but I don't think the "E" stamp has anything to do with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by NORTHOF60
Its an extrapolation.
According to the BSA 1909 catalogue: Lee-Enfield Magazine Military Carbines - "these rifles are not strictly of Service Pattern, and therefore cannot be supplied Government viewed". This rifle could be order with either Metford or Enfield rifling. I've only noticed the "circle E" on BSA Lee-Enfield Magazine Military Carbines. I have not seen the mark present on the BSA Lee-Enfield Magazine Sporting Rifles, which could also be ordered with Metford rifling.
I take no ownership over the issue, and would happily defer to and expert who can prove otherwise.
There’s no proof either way, just observations. The encircled E is something I’ve seen on commercial examples—on carbines as well as sporting rifles, some with Metford rifling, and it is quite different from the seriph E that appears on the center-top of the knox form of government service rifles with Enfield rifling. On commercial rifles, the encircled E nearly always appears near an similarly encircled letter V, somewhere on the knox. There is no corresponding encircled M (for Metford), though an encircled N is sometimes seen.
Meaning is unknown and every theory I’ve had over the years has been struck down by new evidence. I wish I knew the meaning, but anyone who knew it must be long dead.
I wish I had been born rich, instead of handsome - and then being cheated out of both!
Yeah me too!
I've only ever seen two real examples of the No.2 Officer's Carbine.
You can always be handy if you can't be handsome.
None of those illustrated show the express sights, so presumably a slightly upscale version; or a purely sporting variant?
The "officer's carbines" all have the standard military backsight.
No maker's marks?
You'd have to ask the lucky individual who ended up with it. The 1909 BSA catalogue does state of the Lee-Enfield Magazine Military Carbines: "They make admirable "handy" sporting rifles, and sell in considerable numbers to those who want cheap weapons for for all-round work."
If they were prepared to call them "cheap weapons" that probably tells us just how cheap they were, meaning they were made from "surplus" LE & LM carbine and parts.
As long as those lasted there was perhaps no need to offer cut-down versions of the LM & LE rifles as I believe came on a bit later(?)
Commercial versions of service pattern LM rifles came first. Sporting and "trade" patterns soon after. None of them were cut down; they were built up that way from scratch. As for being drawn from "surplus" parts, it is worth asking exactly what that means. They were not overruns, or second-hand former service arms. They were built on the same machinery, however, which is what made them economical. The machinery itself was enormously expensive, and only four factories in England had that kind of machinery (you could not create a Lee Metford action on a tiny workbench in St. Mary's Row; it required hundreds of machining operations). But when you are cranking out 100,000 per year for the government, you can do a few more for the commercial trade at relatively low cost. However, they were not just pulled from a bin. If you examine the actions of the sporting models (including the .375 models), you will see that they differ from the service pattern action (not being machined for volley sights, or in some cases for cutoffs), which means they did not follow the standard production process completely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
It is worth noting that Lee-Metfords and Lee-Enfields were rather expensive--they always were, at least until the No.4 rifle arrived in the 1930s. This is one of the reasons why they were not adopted by foreign nations outside the British Empire and Commonwealth. There were other factors too...another story... back to the subject of commercial rifles...
"Cheap" is a relative term... One needs to ask how much the average buyer would earn in wages circa the year 1909 and what percentage of those wages a rifle would cost. If, for example, a police constable earned £80 per year in 1909, then a BSA trade pattern carbine costing £6.75 (135 shillings), would require him to spend 8.44% of his annual salary. Would you buy a rifle that cost 8.44% of your annual salary? How many dollars would that be? Research along these lines tells us something about who the potential buyers would be for these rifles...at least in terms of income. You can translate that into professions, and combine that with other historical evidence to see that these were likely purchased by military officers, civil servants, colonists going overseas, sportsmen of relatively limited means, maybe archaeologists or geographers in faraway places, and of course competitive target rifle shooters at home and abroad (for service patterns). People with more income than these professions probably bought more expensive rifles (if they needed them), while lower classes would not buy them at all. Unlike in America, off-duty policeman in Edwardian England did not go deer hunting on weekends.
In 1907, an Englishman would have paid £6 for an imported Winchester Model 1895 or £3/3 for a Winchester Model 1892. So the BSA Lee rifles were not cheap compared to those. (A BSA No.1 Pattern Sporting rifle, which required some hand labor, would have run up to 240/- or £12). When the BSA catalogues say "cheap" they are really comparing these machine-made, trade-pattern carbines to hand-built double rifles or falling block rifles; the former might cost £45 or more (for a no-name "store" brand), and the latter £12 or more. How much would your annual salary in 1909 have to be to comfortably afford one of those? That's what makes the BSA rifles seem "cheap." And that's why the Lee-Speed was such a threat to the established gun trade, at least at first.
It is worth noting that the commercial Lee Metford sporting rifle did not have much competition until the late 1890s. It was the first smallbore, repeating, sporting rifle that fired smokeless powder. In these early days, sportsmen bought them because they were new and full of exciting ballistic possibilities...truly unprecedented. Cost had little to do with it for such buyers. Later, when there was more competition (at the low end and the high end), the BSA Lee rifles settled into a more affordable niche in the market, and this is what the catalogue description is referring to.
Would love to know about the other factors.
Every thing is relative. The 1908 BSA Catalogue lists the least expensive sporting rifle for 165. A .303 Lee-Enfield Short Service rifle retailed for 97/6. The Lee-Enfield Magazine Military Carbines retailed for 135.
Courtesy of the Rifleman Org UK
https://www.rifleman.org.uk/BSA_Rifl...logue-1908.htm
Instead of "a bit later" I should have said "post WWI", as that is when sporterized or cut down versions of earlier service LM and LE rifles began to appear as the really "cheap" sporters, AFAIK. I take your point about the ex LM and LE carbine actions not being the source of all the sporting rifles made pre-WWI - not saying they were - but the carbines in the BSA catalogue definitely appear to be mostly ex-miltary parts and I suppose some were pretty much unaltered surplus arms, or altered only by having modified or different butts, forends etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jc5
Your points about the economics are well made; we forget today with our post 1960s affluence just how expensive durable goods of all kinds were even after WWII. Well, those of us who weren't adults in the 1940s or 50s! ;) There is no Walmart for goods made by well-paid workers, and as for rifles and guns, the Army & Navy Stores were as close as it got for the equipping of officers, civil servants and emigrants going overseas, and very few of those were well-paid until the 1950s.
Indeed, and it was the desire to escape that "island 9 by 7" and all the limitations of lifestyle that went with it, that drove two centuries of emigration to our part of the world. We look back at how apparently cheap and plentiful what are now collectibles were in the past, but relatively speaking how cheap were they and how much disposable income was there? That policeman who wanted to go shooting went to the "miniature rifle club" most likely; deer were definitely not an option unless he had an "in" somewhere.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jc5
Yes, a look at the sales ledgers of the prominent gunmakers shows who was buying the higher end production. "Living on own account", "private means" or "gentleman" as the passenger lists, census etc. used to say!
I agree with your observations Surpmil. The only thing I would split hairs over is the term "surplus" and "ex-military", because I think those terms carry a meaning that applies more to the post-WWII era where many ex-service weapons were offered for private sale. BSA's trade pattern carbines, as well as the sporting rifles, were made on the same machinery as the rifles that they made for the government contracts, but they are not former service rifles (ex-military)--they were built purposely for commercial sale and were never part of any government contract, nor do they carry government property markings or government proofs. They were commercially proved (in BSA's case, the Birmingham Proof House) just like every other firearm sold in Britain to civilians.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
So too, the term "surplus" implies that such articles were extras, or overruns from government contracts. This is not the case. The actions were in many cases machined differently than the government models, lacking the cuts for the volleys. Look at the left side of a sporting rifle or trade carbine action. Some models left out the slot for the cut-off. This is evidence that they went through a slightly different process of manufacture and were not just pulled from a bin.
It is correct to say that in some respects, the commercial models followed the service pattern. This is true for things like trigger group parts, cocking pieces, bolt heads, and in some cases sights. You will see differences from the service pattern in finish, engraving, bolt handles, express sights, front sights, barrel length, sling eyes, wood quality, escutcheons, butt plates, fore-end shape, and of course all the markings will be different. For carbines and some sporters, the actions will be different, as I noted above.