Eddystone P14 sniper rifle

[ArtioZen]

Thanks for the link Badger!

Promo - I am not aware of Cabelas selling for other people (consignment), they typically buy and sell and offer trade in deals - I would expect very little info of this items history to be available which is a pity. My local store (one of the largest they have) does not even carry .303 ammo in any form so it seems to be trapped in limbo.

Happy New Year all!

[M94/14]

I was in the Post Falls Cabellas in October. I had that very rifle in my hands and had a good look at it, even had the scope off the rifle. The scope is a BSA marked unit, and serial # matches the rifle. It has the correct rear sight, though I can't rembember if it is serial matched. I'm not 100% sure on the bolt either, memory is a bit sketchy there as well, but I don't think the bolt matches. I'll have to have another look when I go through there this year. I doubt it's going anywhere at that price.

[JGaynor]

reportedly only 79 of the BSA equipped rifles were created for the Irish Free State. With those kind of numbers its very hard to come up with a value.

One thing for certain it would be exceedingly unwise to shoot it with the scope on it, Not even one round.

[Surpmil]

I believe the W&S scopes were fitted at the Small Arms Experimental Department in Quebec, according to The Ross Rifle Story. The S.A.E.D. also produced other things like a Galilean sight for the MkIII Ross, obviously for sniping purposes, of which examples are known. I was reading a document a few days ago that mentioned the delivery of 50 Rosses with telescopic sights to a Canadian Division in early 1916, only a few months before the Ross was withdrawn from general front line issue. Unfortunately the type(s) of scopes was(were) not listed.

I posted in the Ross forum on this site a copy of a photo that shows Canadian "scouts" in a French town in late 1918 using both P14s and Ross MkIII rifles. Presumably both were on issue right to the end of the war. There is an account of new Ross MkIIIs being issued for sniping that were actually manufactured in 1917; these were rifles without scopes as the scopes were fitted in France except in the case of the W&S units.

[Promo]

The P.14 with the W&S scopes were assembled after WWI, somewhere around 1940 if I'm not mistaken. Aswell if I remember correctly, the scopes were sent to the UK where at least 80 of those should have been assembled.

[Simon]

One thing for certain it would be exceedingly unwise to shoot it with the scope on it, Not even one round.

This is how I get around the problem of potentially damaging my Patt 18 scope. The Lyman Alaskan is the same 7/8" tube as the Patt 18 and you get simple onboard lateral adjustment too.

Cheers,

Simon.

[Surpmil]

The P.14 with the W&S scopes were assembled after WWI, somewhere around 1940 if I'm not mistaken. Aswell if I remember correctly, the scopes were sent to the UK where at least 80 of those should have been assembled.

That is the information in Without Warning, by Clive Law, but I think this thread was about the fitting of Winchester A5 scopes during WWI and whether that was done by the CEF. It would make sense, if the Canadians did to fit scopes to the P14 in WWI, but whether that actually happened still seems to be unknown.