Drill Purpose Rifle L59A1 UK Legal Status

[Peter Laidler]

There will be a few hundred Enfield owners and collectors sighing and agreeing with you 303t. It's important that some of these little 'non-guns' survive but nobody seems to know what they are. Well, we do.....non-guns, but there isn't a classification on a licence for non guns.

It would take a registered dealer to get one up to the proof house, get it 'not capable of being proofed', get a statement of its condition from a totally independent graduate engineer - preferably someone involved in the original programme, together with the original drawings, THEN sell it on to a collectot.

Then and IF the muck hit the proverbial fan, let them take you on. They very probably wouldn't bother but if they were so foolhardy as to do so they'd loose of course, THEN ask for total costs against them for being so foolhardy

[Sht_LE]

point of interest, I just found this last night:

http://www.rifleman.org.uk/L59A1_and_A2_DP_Rifles.htm

about half way down the page it references an L60A1 found in private hands in the UK by the police, who questioning its status as a firearm...

"The matter was referred back to the UK MoD...... The decision was made that while the ‘rifle’ did not have a deactivation certificate, it remained inert and, even though it was capable of feeding and loading a drill-round.....
it was deemed to be deactivated to beyond the Home Office required standard and was returned to the owner."

Thought it might be of interest.

BTW, anyone know the status of an L59A1 in the USA? Just wondering if the BATFE classifies it as a firearm or not...... In other words, do you need an FFL for a transfer?

[tlvaughn]

I am amazed at the hurdles some of you must jump over just to acquire a piece of history. I ordered another L59A1 this week, and below was the process:

I ordered the rifle on Tuesday, called the company and gave them my credit card info, faxed them my C&R, they shipped it Wednesday, and UPS is delivering it today.

No intent to rub it in, just amazed at the different laws in diffrent countries. It's a shame it isn't this easy for all of us!!

[Mk VII]

You won't get total costs now, only legal aid minimum rate.

[Kev G]

Sorry to reserect this thread but has the status been challenged or any progress been made since the last post ?

ATB KG

[Beerhunter]

Sorry to reserect this thread but has the status been challenged or any progress been made since the last post ?

ATB KG

If you mean has the law been changed, the answer is no and so the L59 continues not to be within the specification of a deactivated firearm laid down by the 1968 Firearms Act (as Amended). That is to say each and every L59 is therefore still liable to challenge and has to be defended in its own right.

[Peter Laidler]

Get one KG then have it examined by someone who's competent to do so, then take it AND the examination certificate to the proof house who will agree with what's been said 100% and issue you with a letter to that effect BUT that they can't certify that it's deacted to the HO spec but that it is totally incapable of blah blah blah AND that the specification actually exceeds the laid down spec...........

Then take the paperwork to your local plod and request that in the light of the proof house opinion and the the UK MoD fact (we only deal in facts your honour......) they remove it from your FAC.

The problem as I've heard is that there are some 'L59's' that are simply purporting and dressed-up to be L59's. But unless they conform to the last EMER, they ain't. This thread isn't going to die. But the answer is simplicity itself

As the great Mr Kalashnikov told an Engineers Conference. '............it's easy to make things complicated. The difficulty is making complicated things easy'. I wish I'd invented a) that saying and b) his rifle

[Kev G]

Peter I was thinking more in the line of an L54 so will start in new thread in the Bren forum.
Just interested to find out if anyone had taken up the challenge and if so how they had fared ?

ATB KG

[Beerhunter]

Same law for a Bren, just different rules. For example, to benefit from the Act, the Barrel Group must be welded to the Body Group. If it is not then the Proof House can't pass it as deactivated and so it has to take its chance in court.

[Peter Laidler]

The irony of the Bren DP saga (only real, MoD spec L54/5's of course) is that they were actually being sold as deactivated, off certificate during the 80's BEFORE there was even such a category as 'deactivated', for the princely sun of £57 or so. This was on the basis that they were not firearms as defined and as such, exempt from the act. Mind you, when you could buy the real McCoy as a single shot firearm or a smooth bored shotgun for the same, then quite understandably, Mr Pannell didn't sell many!

I saw one recently that had been purchased as an L54 DP Bren prior to the 'ban' and subsequently re-submitted for certification. Just the barrel welded in and it passed. But was there even a need for it to have been re-submitted on the basis that the law isn't retrospective?