Cleaning up an old War Horse

[ickmann]

Time to update..

Well, my uncle said that he would not be able to give me any good answers, so I sent the sample of the sand to a Geological Forensics expert..more or less on a whim and not expecting to get much for my efforts as the sample was small and the gentleman said that he more than likely would not be able to tell much...Anyway, I received an e-mail tonight and here are some extracts from his report.

"Forensic geologists at Geoforensics Inc. reviewed the sand sample from your 1916 Lee-Enfield rifle. No particular grains of sand in the sample provide a basis to identify a specific location(s). Ideally, the process to identify source location(s) for your sand would involve comparing your sample with samples from anticipated specific/souce locations. Additionally, the experiences of the geologists involved in the analysis also can play a significant role in determining the provenance of a sample.

Although we are unable to identify specific locations your rifle encountered, the diversity of the sample particles provides some bases to suggest the rifle encountered the following types of environments:

* Desert
* Marine
* Volcanic Sand
* Sandy Clay

Extrapolating from this information, the rifle possibly could have been used in the following geographic locations (consistent with the sample and British Army activity over the period involved):

* World War I:

- Middle East (e.g., Saudi Arabia), most of the sample material can be found in this area where British Troops were deployed.

* World War II (assuming the rifle was still in service in WWII)

- Salerno, Italy and/or Sicily,
- Northern Africa (e.g., Libya, Egypt)

These speculations are based on very limited evidence and meant to provide you with information for further research. If you haven't done so, you may want to consider trying to trace the rifle's serial number. It's a long-shot, but the War Office in Britain may have kept records.

Finally, in the "for what it's worth" category, you may be interested to know that the sample contained a portion/"clipping" of a fingernail. The form of the clipping suggests it was cut with something other than scissors (e.g. a nail clipper)."

...For the record, I do not groom myself in my work shop/gun bench room

Cheers,
Ian