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Legacy Member
Commercial sporter stocks?
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?
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03-06-2025 12:51 PM
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Legacy Member
Sile made some of the high-end stocks that P-H used.
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Thank You to Mk VII For This Useful Post:
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Advisory Panel
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.
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Legacy Member
I'm not entirely sure it is a Sile-made stock. It doesn't have the markings that they have.
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Advisory Panel
"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.
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Legacy Member
And of course, Sile made the butts and Colin Moon made the forend for the Lee Enfield Enforcer.
Mine are not the best, but they are not too bad. I can think of lots of Enfields I'd rather have but instead of constantly striving for more, sometimes it's good to be satisfied with what one has...
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Advisory Panel
Are the ENVOY butts marked SILE?
“There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.”
Edward Bernays, 1928
Much changes, much remains the same. 
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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
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Legacy Member
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.
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PM
