Commercial sporter stocks?

[BurtonP]

Hi all,
I picked up a couple of No 1 Mk III sporter stocks for a project and was interested to note that one was not a cut down full forestock. It was professionally inlet and did not have normal features like the top handguard clip cutouts and the rear sight protector cutouts. There are no markings on it.



I had always assumed that commercial companies like Parker Hale reworked cut down original stocks, but I must be wrong. Does anyone know if these stocks were made commercially, or is it just a really good amateur gunsmith's work?

[Mk VII]

Sile made some of the high-end stocks that P-H used.

[tiriaq]

Sile, in Italy, makes a lot of stocks. In addition to the Lee Enfield sporter stocks, they also made the stocks for the PH Mauser sporters. They have also made stocks for Savage .22s.

[BurtonP]

I'm not entirely sure it is a Sile-made stock. It doesn't have the markings that they have.

[tiriaq]

"Sile" is often found stamped in the stock. Converting service rifles to sporters was quite the industry. There were other businesses making sporter stocks.
I mentioned Sile making Savage .22 stocks. Saw a batch of them at the Savage plant in Lakefield, Ontario. Bubblegum pink for a KMart order. Thousands of them. At the time, Savage could source them cheaper delivered from Italy than from the US.

[Alan de Enfield]

And of course, Sile made the butts and Colin Moon made the forend for the Lee Enfield Enforcer.

[Surpmil]

Are the ENVOY butts marked SILE?

[Peter Laidler]

Choosing my words carefully, I'm not sure that many Armourers of the L39 and L42 era would agree with the notion that Moon made the L39 and 42 stocks. He certainly did something to them. But whatever it was, it wasn't making them or even making anything good or useful with them, certainly with regards to quality!

Agreed, the L42 was made DOWN to a price and the quality of the woodwork produced probably reflected this. Even new spares inevitably needed patching from the word go........... Just my limited experience of course

[Brian Dick]

I don't think the Envoy butts were made by SILE in Italy. They were made in England as were the butts for the No.8Mk.1. The butts for the Enforcer were made by SILE but I don't think they were marked SILE anywhere. They are completely different.

[BurtonP]

As far as quality of my piece goes, it is inlet well, but is missing the stock reinforcement bar thingy (whatever it's called) at the rear of the handguard. Not just missing, there's no inlet to affix it either . . . as if it was never intended to be there.
Having seen a ton of cracked stocks there I assume it's a fairly important part.