Quote Originally Posted by Alan de Enfield View Post
There was only one magazine per rifle, you didn't remove the magazine except occasionally to clean the rifle, the magazine was loaded using chargers, slid into the charger-bridge (strippers in American parlance). The magazines were not simply plug-and-play and required fitting to the rifle (hence they were rarely removed as they could easily have the 'ears' bent, and just a couple of thou' out of alignment and they wouldn't feed)


List of Changes #C2792 dated 3rd June 1946 mandated that all new No4 production rifles must have their magazines numbered to the rifle, and any rifles 'in the field' must have their magazines numbered to the rifle on the next Armourers Inspection.

If you have a rifle with an un-numbered magazine, you in fact have a 'non-original' rifle as ALL rifles should have had numbered magazines in Service, certainly within (say) 12 months of June '46.
If your rifle was sold out of service prior to the LoC implementation then it could have escaped with an 'un-numbered' magazine.


Extract :
Thank you Alan! That explains a couple of things and raises a new question or two. The magazine is either mismarked or mismatched. I was assuming that it was a mistake in marking, but it occurs to me that if the magazine was separated from the rifle during the process of putting it into surplus then the mistake could have been made when re-attaching them during that process. The last digit ( "3") in the serial number on the rifle is very easy to mistake for a "5" as is on the magazine.

This may explain a problem I am having with feeding ammunition. The last round in the magazine does not feed. It goes high and left of the chamber. All of the other rounds feed fine. The magazine itself seems to fit fine. I was thinking that this was due to the follower or spring. I hope it's not an issue with the ears.

#C2792 also mentions marking the foreend of the rifle with the serial number. I believe this would be on the underside of the forestock. Is that correct? This was not done on
on this rifle. I suppose the rifle could have been retired between the two effective dates of the changes. The stocks look original to me. At least they all seem to be the same wood and about the same age.

One more question if you don't mind. Should the barrel also be serialized? I attached a couple of pictures of the muzzle. It does bear some marks, but not a serial number.