P14 Eddystone Fatboy?

[Patrick Chadwick]

You have a well-marked Eddystone with apparently original volley sights. Good P14s are much rarer than M1917s, and the vast majority had their volley sights removed during later overhauls.
I don't know your market, but that looks to me to be worth at least 50% more than a "normal" example. OK, maybe I'm an optimist, but it is certainly above average.

As for EY - a century later it is not easy to tell why it was marked thus. The EY indicates that it was "iffy" in some respect, but not a hopeless case. Maybe nothing worse than a bore worn beyond normal service acceptance limits. If it was dangerous to shoot, it would surely have been simply scrapped or marked DP (drill purpose only). The only sensible thing to do is to proceed on the basis that you know nothing for sure - as you would do anyway for an old service rifle!

BTW, the EY marking is mentioned in several posts on the Lee-Enfield forum. It was apparently used for grenade-launching rifles - but these were usually (???) wire-wrapped as well, to provide extra stability. Nevertheless they were fireable, whatever defects they may have had.

So give it a thorough examination for barrel damage and wear, rusting beneath the wood, excessive head clearance, rust in the chamber etc. etc. Your photos reveal that it has been removed from the stock since the trigger guard screws were staked a century ago, so you will not be disturbing any original setup, which would in any case no longer apply after a century. And don't waste time and money on headspace gauges on such an old rifle. Over and over again it has been demonstrated on these pages that the typical gunsmith has no idea of how to properly evaluate these old rifles, and will avoid any conceivable liability by condemning it.

To get the best results out of ancient service rifles, you need to use cases that have been fire-formed in that rifle, especially since the rifle may well have been downgraded to EY because of bore wear. In which case, first test shots with newly formed cases are likely to be disappointing for accuracy. Please take the trouble to search for "head clearance" in the forum contributions, and you will find the matter described in detail on more than one occasion, with test methods that may not measure to the millionth of an inch, but are quite accurate enough to determine whether a rifle is usable or not. Correctly sized bullets and cases can transform the performance of old rifles.

Study the forum advice, go carefully, and enjoy it

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