ShtLE No1 Mk1* gunmetal buttplate and other details

[303Guy]

Oh, I meant to say I think the III on the safety pertains to the safety itself, not the rifle.

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[Lashenden]

Thank you 303Guy! The gunmetal buttplate is one the changes identified by Ian Skennerton in the change from Mk1 to 1*. His list of 1* features is that the design is basically same as a Mk1 except the buttplate changes from steel without trap to gunmetal with trap, rear swivel changes from single screw to inlet two screw, a slightly deeper profile magazine is fitted, stamped '2', the firing pin keeper is redesigned from the earlier knurled button to a screw head with wide slot for use with a coin and fitted slightly more flush with the back face of the cocking piece. That's everything he mentions, but the list may be incomplete.

As I cautiously suggested in my original post, the Mk1* was approved in late March '06, and was superceded by the MkIII in April '07, so they weren't manufactured for very long - I'm guessing no more than 150,000 were ever made. If most were subsequently upgraded to 1*** and fitted with brass buttplates around 1914, there just can't be many gunmetal buttplates left in existence 100 years later, and presumably gunmetal wasn't such a good idea anyway, or they wouldn't have gone over to brass - too expensive, perhaps, or too prone to damage in service? Anyway, I'm just channelling Skennerton here - I claim no expertise of my own in this matter.

I think this rifle may well have come from NZ anyway, as that seems to be the main source of pre-MkIII Enfields these days. I'm guessing only NZ and Austrailian rifles escaped the big conversion to Mk1***? I think you're right, it's just the safety catch itself (and possibly the associated bits and pieces) that's a MkIII part, but I don't know how to spot the correct item - is the profile the same as a III?