first enfield!! but now think i have a bitzer...help

[Homer]

So yourI rifle is not stamped BA all over after all. I wouldn't have the faintest idea about price but you seem concerned about the mix of factory codes. Why? Its perfectly normal for lithgows made after 1942 to have a mix of codes and your rifle was assembled by a commercial gunsmith so it wouldn't matter what they are stamped.

[Meatball]

i was mainly concerned after i found out it was a jovino....im less worried about it know but when i first googled him seems most comments where like...fake enfield... so i was trying to find out more

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Having an assortment of factory codes is not necessarily a bad thing in itself.

The whole idea was that the parts be to spec., regardless of the source. This is analogous the pool system used for M1 rifles and carbines in the US. The Lithgow site was primarily making machine guns in WW2. They converted the old, long brick buildings to make Vickers guns and built an entire new building near the front gate to make Brens. It was known as the "Bren Building" thereafter, long after Bren manufacture had ceased.

The plant from the original buildings was dispersed to the "Annexes", as they were known. Thus, BA (Bathurst), OA (Orange), etc. Other "annexes" were at Cowra, Dubbo, Forbes, Parkes, Portland, Mudgee, Wellington and Young, all of which were in a 150 mile radius of Lithgow. A Plant at Katoomba was planned but the war ended before it got up and running.The woodwork plant went to Slazengers (of tennis racquet fame), in Sydney.

As the war wound down, these annexes were closed. By 1946, only Lithgow remained in production. At the height of wartime production, the system was turning out four thousand rifles, 150 Bren guns and 70 Vickers guns each week.

By the time SMLE production stopped at Lithgow in 1956, output amounted to 640,000 rifles, 17,500 Brens, 12,300 Vickers. Lysaghts had produced 50,000 Owen guns and Diecasters etc., about 20,000 Austens.

For a useful roundup of .303 ammo manufacturing, see: http://enfieldking.tripod.com/enfieldking/id13.html

[Meatball]

thanx for all the info...but since you mentioned ammo...theres no ammo related issues with the enfield receivers is there? safe to fire standard pressure new manufactured ammo?

[RJW NZ]

Yes meatball its bad news if you thought you had a minty and matching from the factory Lithgow. Your research is all correct in that you have a fully matching JJco lithgow numbered by JJco. They are not my thing but many seem to have and enjoy them so perhaps you can learn to love it.

RJ the 1918 lithgow would not be correct with the A suffix in the serial number. I'm sure you probably meant A8888

yes, correct, thanks