Project has taken almost tens years.? Done!

[englishman_ca]

Started out on this one with only a 1909 manufacture dated 22 rim fire military barrel and the bright idea to build it back up into a Mk.I trainer.

Sure. Just find the rest of the parts of the assembly of a rare conversion of a rare rifle and bring back to original specs. Sounds straight forward. No?


Everything is pretty much 'correct', other than the trainer never actually had a receiver mounted safety catch fitted, this one does. I got tired at looking at the empty safety lever cut out.

I assembled this rifle one piece at a time gathering up by buying and horse trading for correct and original parts from all over the globe. Shipping often cost me more than the actual part.
All of these parts were from collectors' spares and junk drawers. Some of the small parts and screws are new old stock. Nothing that I used was from an auction site.

The later pattern of 1912 Sht.22 Mk.II Naval Trainer shows up quite often in Ontario and seems to be not too difficult to find. I believe that many made their way onto the Canadian civilian market in the 1920s when the Brits sold off a lot of obscolete trainers .

But not so with the earlier pattern of 1907 Mk.I version. I have never seen one in Canada. There has to be somebody here with one, but nobody that I know of. I believe that there were around 14,000 of theses converted.
I have relied upon help from collectors around the world to put this one together to be as correct as I can. I have been posting pics of it over the years and received a lot of great input.

Although a total mix match of makers from different sources, it actually looks like that it has been together for a long time.

If you read the rifle, the story it tells is of the conversion of a 1890 Enfield MLM Mk.I* into a Sht.22 Mk.I Naval Trainer at RSAF Enfield in 1910.
It has a mismatched serial number barrel and a mismatched serial number bolt (of course it does, itsa bitsa, no two pieces are from the same rifle).

This trainer has been a big challenge to complete. I aint gonna do that again!
I'll stick to the more common 303 Metford Mk.I and Mk.I* rifles.

But I am quite pleased with the way this one has turned out. The rifle shoots like a charm and is surprisingly accurate.
I'm calling it done and moving it from the project rack into the collection.

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