Lee Enfield Aluminum stock

[stevebc]

Frederick, you have put your points across very well & I think what you say is very plausible. Shame we can only speculate on the issue.....

I agree, but assuming his conclusion is accurate, it might be possible to trace who was likely to have taken this on. There can't have been too many outfits in a position to do that and capable of it, and people's memories can be long. I prefer to be an optimist.

[Peter Laidler]

I know I'm a pessimist Steve, and really truly would like to look on the bright side but would you want to be identified as someone turning out shi........., er......... cr..... rubbish like that? Go on, be honest........ really?

[smellie]

Just for giggles, if we are going to talk bout crap, let's think about:

Sten Mark 1

Chauchat

Pike Mark 1

and there are others, of course.......

I'm not shouting "loud enough and often enough", although that IS rather a nice quote from Dr. Goebbels.

I am as mystified as anyone. I just would like people to investigate this without preconceived conclusions getting in the way.

There must be a REASON for these and some indication as to where and when they were done. They didn't just grow on a Lee-Enfield bush out in the back pasture.

I know that guys will scream, "Buy the RIFLE, not the STORY", but I only paid $38 for mine, so there wasn't much of a story. The story was that it was on a Manitoba farm from 1946 until the day I got it: something like 45 years. It was supposed to have been "borrowed" from the Army by a fellow who was being discharged..... back to that same farm. His grandson disposed of the ugly old thing for something he wanted: 3 boxes of .243 ammo. Not much of a story; it wasn't even Andy McNaughton's personal sniping rifle (he grew up 42 miles from here: next decent-size town), much less Monty's personal Tank rifle. Just a beat-up, ugly old gun on a medium-size 1000-acre farm, a rifle which was too slow for modern fast-and-wary coyotes.

I just would like to see the bottom of the mystery..... especially as there seem to be TWO of them, identical.

[Homer]

Smellie it's obvious no one here has the answers your looking for

[smellie]

@ Homer:

Quite possible that you are right.

I just got a new digital camera. When I get it figured out how to work it, I'll post some good close-ups of that fore-end. I don't think it was made by a 9-year-old kid.

Take some time, though; I can be pretty slow with this electroniwockle stuff.

[tbonesmith]

How about this for a scenrio:

A professional pattern maker who happens to like tinkering with guns, makes a high quality mould/ sand casting for the manufacture of some aluminium forends for No1 Mk111's. He skillfully knocks out a few thinking he might be able to sell them or use them for target shooting or that they's be ideal for hunting deer in the highly temperature variable wilds of Canada, and he just happened to have some Ross buts lying around or maybe he preferred them for some reason and put them to use.

I don't know anything about them, but skilled people can make excellent products that would appear to have come from a "line". Especially moulded products.

Just my 2 cent and nothing more.

[Peter Laidler]

Ah, smellie....... The Sten Mk1. I'm sure that you meant the Sten Mk2. But guess what? There's a saying that you can only kill a man so dead! And whether you do it with an expensive burst of gunfire from a £55, beautifully machined, blued, walnut stocked Thompson or a cheap burst of gunfire from a £2:7shilling (£2.35) Sten gun, of which 2 million were made, the result is STILL the same.

Just my take on the comparison. But then, I do have a vested interest in the well being of the remarkable Sten Gun. They said after the war that very little was expected of the Sten. But of that very little, it gave its all, very well. Or something like that!

[jmoore]

How about this for a scenrio: A professional pattern maker who happens to like tinkering with guns, makes a high quality mould/ sand casting for the manufacture of some aluminium forends for No1 Mk111's.

Would guess further that the scenario would most likely take place soon after WWII. Aluminum was now available in great quantities and for cheap. Think of all the other aluminum products that came and went with the great aircraft meltdowns.

[stevebc]

I know I'm a pessimist Steve, and really truly would like to look on the bright side but would you want to be identified as someone turning out shi........., er......... cr..... rubbish like that? Go on, be honest........ really?

Well, yes, I would, because I'm not convinced it's ...rubbish. Someone went to a lot of work to produce that, and it doesn't appear to my eye to be as crude as suggested. Just because I can't figure out what the intention was, doesn't mean this was a basement/bubba/bodge job. We may yet find the answers.