More new owner stuff.

[Nate]

OK, now I know that I have an Enfield Martini, A Pattern, thanks. In looking into removing the fore end, it looks like my barrel bands are reversed. (?) The bayonet lug is on the right side and so are the screw heads. Pics here are not sharp enough to determine. No big deal but I'd like it to be right.

Information

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[Nate]

Never mind, I'm an idiot. It's OK.

[Richardwv]

Nate, as noted in the previous thread, you have a Martini-Henry MK IV that started life as a Enfield-Martini. Nobody has an Enfield-Martini except for the Pattern Room and one or two museums (at most). All Enfield-Martinis made for issue were converted to MH MK IV rifles before they ever left the armory. If your receiver shows signs of being a EM rifle (off-center IV), then you have a pattern B rifle. Pattern "A" rifles, while also conversions of EM rifles, were rebuilt using a new receiver to eliminate certain receiver features of early EM rifles. Pattern "B" rifles were conversions of later EM rifles and kept their EM receivers. Pattern "C" rifles were all new parts. Both "A" and "C" rifles have receivers showing the "IV" centered under the lock viewers mark, where as on Pattern "B" rifles the "V" portion of the "IV" was added off to the right of the original "I" that the receiver bore when it was an EM rifle.

A tad confusing perhaps, but they are all MK IV rifles as far as the Brit military was concerned. The Pattern "A", "B" and "C" is a collectors convention adopted to distinguish between the variations resulting from production. These designations were not used during the rifle's military life.

A serious or curious collector should invest in the 3 vol set "A TREATISE ON THE BRITISH MILITARY MARTINI" http://www.skennerton.com/rifles.html

Yes the books are a tad expensive, but the info is invaluable.

[John Sukey (Deceased)]

Easier way to determine which pattern. Only the A pattern will accept a socket bayonet, the B and C patterns will only take a blade bayonet.
Though all Martini's can use a blade.

[Nate]

Thanks Guys, it is then a B. I've been collecting for over 50 years and this Martini thing is the most confusing arm I've run across.