Australian SLR questions

Hello all. I recently came into an Australian SLR parts build on an Imbel reciever and have a few questions about it. Please forgive me if these are common knowledge. I have several metric pattern FALs but am relatively new to the commonwealth pattern.

1. My rifles serial number is AD7102188 when new would it have had a phosphate finish or paint over phosphate? Furniture would have been wood with laminate handguards?

2. Were these guns FTRed and if so how were they marked?

3. Did the Australians use marynyl furniture? Would the wood and plastic be mixed on the same rifle? As it sits now my rifle has a wood stock and grip with UK plastic handguards. Would this have been an approved configuration?

Thanks in advance.

I had an as new AD71 many years ago and it was phosphate with the serial number done over in silver crayon. It had wood furniture, the carry handle was green plastic.

Phosphate with the lovely black paint over the grey finish.

Any "factory" rebuild would have been conducted at the Lithgow factory, but any of the big "Base" workshops could and did do total rebuilds.

There was a bit of "trialing' of that Brit furniture, but I suspect that very little was officially used. It gets VERY hot after prolonged exposure to our abundant sunlight and is slippery when wet (and a bit oily) The wooden stuff? Not to much.

Plastic furniture is handy if you are subject to NBC attack; it it generally unaffected by industrial detergents and high-pressure steam cleaning machines. Whilst termites seem to shun the stuff, in extreme Arctic cold, some of the Maranyl stuff was reported to become brittle, another advantage of wood. Current service MaG 58 MGs include some "converted" from early Brit L7 guns that came with Maranyl butts, to the complete FN "standard", including wooden butts. Obviously nobody near the top of the greasy pole is expecting the Diggers to deal with NBC "issues", any time soon.

As the changeover in Australia from the L1A1 to the Steyr "Tupperware Rifle" (F-88), loomed, the L1A1's got whatever parts from whatever sources to keep them going until disposal.

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Originally Posted by AZMPiKM

Hello all. I recently came into an Australian SLR parts build on an Imbel reciever and have a few questions about it. Please forgive me if these are common knowledge. I have several metric pattern FALs but am relatively new to the commonwealth pattern.

1. My rifles serial number is AD7102188 when new would it have had a phosphate finish or paint over phosphate? Furniture would have been wood with laminate handguards?

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Your rifle was made for West Malaysia. From the factory, it would have had the plain phosphate finish, and coachwood furniture with laminate handguards. The finish change to black stoving paint took place the following year.

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2. Were these guns FTRed and if so how were they marked?

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From what I've seen in pictures, some FTR'd rifles had the serial number ground off and reapplied in whatever size and mode was standard of the day (e.g. inverted after 1971, or [on the upper] aligned with the forward edge of the lightening cut on the magazine well) with "FTR XX" below it. E.g. an older rifle rebuilt in 1972 would have had an inverted serial number with "FTR 72" below it. Whether that was unique to Lithgow, or also used at the base-level rebuild facilities, I don't know.

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3. Did the Australians use marynyl furniture? Would the wood and plastic be mixed on the same rifle? As it sits now my rifle has a wood stock and grip with UK plastic handguards. Would this have been an approved configuration?

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Australia did not use Maranyl beyond testing. What West Malaysia may have done, I don't know. However, I understand the combination you describe was common on British rifles (those not rebuilt with full Maranyl) in later years.