Lee Enfield No1 Mkiii Lithgow 1942

[84mmcarl-gustav]

Hi,i am restoring a lee enfield no1 mkIII lighgow ma 1942,i would like to know if somebody can tel me about those marking on the rifle butt,thanks,see picture

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[Rowdy]

Well the butt in your picture is from an early Lithgow - about 1915-23 and looks like varnished Queensland maple.
It could have been reused in a later FTR though not common practice.

[Bindi2]

Is the 42 date on the socket (year of manufacture) or the butt (year of FTR)

[RJW NZ]

HV = high velocity ammo, it means/confirms the rear sight was recalibrated after an ammo change over/improvement that happened around 1905.
The shield is the Lithgow factory logo.
The roman 3 under what looks like a year date of 192-? ish, might have also had a star on the upper right corner of the 111, which was the official designation to denote that the magazine cut off was not used/deleted on this model. Its dodgy on wood as wood moves from gun to gun whereas a metal stamp does not.
The correct year of making is stamped on the wrist.

[84mmcarl-gustav]

hi,very interesting,is this mean this rifle as been made 1915 and reused 1942,thank for all your info

[RJW NZ]

Other way around; made in 1942 and had pre made wood installed.

When/as the japanese emergency developed enfield production was accelerated. One way to speed up production was to use stocks of previously made wood sets from years gone by, so its quite common for Australian ww2 enfields to have wood sets from years other than the wrist stamp.
They also re conditioned older enfields, like my 1918 with 1942 wood, and put them back into service, usually not as front line rifles though, more home defence, which btw, had the potential to become front line equipment quite suddenly if the japanese invaded.

[bradtx]

hightlander138, I can't say positively, but I'm guessing that the butt was replaced after it was sold out of service. The reason being that it has no 'to stores' date stamped, which would be common at the time. Also missing is the 'return to stores' date, but that is missing on some butts anyway.

Brad