AIA No4 Mk4

[Lee Enfield]

Ive just done the same for another group, so as background for the rifles and a bit of reading to help work out for yourselves what happened to AIA, here are three links to Stephen Regwell's site. He actively followed them for a few years trying at first to do a test and review for them but... well, read the timeline in the first link and you will see what happened....

The Mystery of Australian International Arms

Australian International Arms - Part 2

AIA Rifles: Cheaply Made

A few observations:

The argument regarding whether the AIA rifles are "Lee Enfield" or not really doesn't understand that "Lee" refers to the action and (removeable) magazine system patents, while "Enfield" refers to the rifling pattern of the bore.

Therefore the rifles are plainly "Lee" but not "Enfield" at all. In fact, one could argue that none of the 7.62 "Lee Enfield" rifles are "Enfield" at all.


The only? problem with SR's "review" (what's posted is an edited version from what I recall at the time) is that he never actually had a gun....and possibly never even saw one.

His extreme concern regarding potential 3rd world warranty issues is puzzling to someone who regularly shoots 70-150 year old firearms sometimes manufactured in countries which no longer exist...

The SARP quote is interesting, but the history of the SARP programs are notoriously political and the recent small arms RQFs which I have read were plainly written by someone with no knowledge of small arms outside of video games.


I (personally) didn't buy an AIA because I have original 7.62 "Lee" and .303 "Lee Enfield" rifles and the AIA seemed to be a production firearm with "on-demand" availability.