I purchased this from a guy on another forum. He only had about 6 pictures posted and it looked decent (for a first and likely only SMLE) and the price was great so I bought it. It just arrived the other day. I was able to take it out the next day and shoot it. What an awesome experience! Such an amazing gun!

All I knew when I purchased it was that it was a 1941 Lithgowicon with what appeared to be mixed parts (which is OK with me). When it arrived I discovered the bore to be in pretty decent shape and the action was nice and smooth. It also has a beautiful coachwood stock! I also discovered a JJCO import stamp. I had no idea about these at the time so I didn't look for the recoil plates before shooting. Well I got lucky - sort of... I stripped it down just a few minutes ago and found it did indeed have the brass recoil plates. However the forend in that area is badly cracked. I'm not sure if the recoil plates were an afterthought by a previous owner or what but here's what I found:




So I'm gonna take an uneducated guess and say I'll need to replace the forend? Even though I didn't strip it down and check prior to shooting it I'm guessing the damage was preexisting. If I need to replace the stock (and I'm guessing I do), how difficult is it to find coachwood forends without cracks here in the US and how much should I expect to spend? Is it safe to shoot in the meantime? Am I risking anything other than further damaging the already busted forend? I'm kind of bummed about the forend but overall I think I did really well for $225 (US).

Here are the rest of the pictures I took with all the stamps and proofs:

'41 receiver, '43 barrel and stock, '42 forend

1941 Lithgow SMLE Slideshow by cjdangles | Photobucket
Information
Warning: This is a relatively older thread
This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.