11/44 ROF(F) No5 MkI with MkII rear sight

[shmlnaaa]

Funny, no one in my last thread made this big of a deal about rifles being cocked in the pictures. Now you all seem to want to comment on it. In fact, this is the first time anyone has said anything at all about it since I started collecting years ago. Everyone else that I know that take pictures of guns also like to set them up as they look when ready to fire also. Maybe there's slightly different safety protocols from country to country, but I've only seen people care about the usual stuff like muzzle sweeping, not checking to see if a rifle's loaded or not, and lack of trigger discipline. I argue that decocking and dry firing is less safe than leaving a bolt cocked since the process WILL set of a cartridge in the chamber (or leave the rifle so that any bump will cause a negligent discharge). Anyway, it's not like I leave rifles sitting around with the bolts closed (just closed for staged pictures, when I'm arguably in almost direct control of the rifle still). They are kept open in storage for reasons I previously mentioned in other posts. This includes semi-auto rifles and rimfires. Dry firing rimfires can damage them, so it is NOT to be done. It's also pretty pointless and can add needless wear to center-fire self loaders. Better to use a method of handling that's universal across all batteries of arms.

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=47555

Heh, there are even two cocked rifles in one picture in that link! I'll make a note to use the more safe practice of leaving rifles cocked for any pictures I ever post here in the future (will require no extra effort since almost all are taken that way). You guys will just have to deal with it. I'm not going to change how I do my safely composed pictures with my safely handled firearms.

I would offer that the primary reason there are so many 'more reported miss matched bolts' in Yankland is that all the Enfields, excepting some of the Savage-made ones, have been imported and passed through heaven only knows how many sets of hands in the process. I'd wager not all of them care a dot if the bolts matched the rifles, and that to most of them regarding Enfields, 'one rifle, one bolt, one magazine' was the rule of the day.

...

If a lot of the other English speaking countries didn't have the extensive imports from all over the world that the US has historically had, then I bet you're right. I'm sure a lot of countries or groups didn't care about matching parts so long as the rifle worked. The more rifles were used also increases the likelihood that a part needs to be replaced or is just arbitrarily swapped for whatever reason.

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