L12A1 .22 Kit for the L1A1 rifle

[mrclark303]

The straight pull is one from Suffolk firearms, probably one of his last as I now understand he is no longer trading. The H&K liner I have is unissued and required polishing on a surface plate to get it to fit smoothly, the barrel on this rifle is I believe Italian but I could be wrong the action and breech block are Australian.
For those outside the UK the "bitsa" make up of this rifle is to comply with UK firearms law with regard to semi auto rifles above .22, in essence all semi autos above .22 are Section 5 and are not available to the general public.
The law is quite specific in that a "Section 5" semi auto rifle can't be converted to "Section 1straight pull rifle nor can the parts from a "Section 5" rifle be used to build a "Section 1" rifle.
However as "Section 5" only applies to rifles in the UK then parts from say an Australian rifle can be used which is why my straight pull is the way it is.
If you have managed to follow this well done as the "Section 5" rules have cought out more than one person in the past.

Hi Paul,

My L1A1 was the first example built up by Suffolk Rifles, (Enfield 1962 dated). With regard to your Lithgow, I think all the serial numbers I looked up for Neal when he first purchased that batch, were originally Malay contract examples. Quite a large batch of ex Malay rifles were shipped to Europe (Germany) about the turn of the century

The majority were deactivated or reduced to parts ... good to see yours was assembled as a straight pull in Italy and not deactivated or scrapped! Yep, Italian barrels were used in the build, same company that made the SP Garand barrels too I think.

I had to carry out the same "knats private parts" reduction to the liner to fit my Enfield too, (slightly more bore wear than my Lithgow L1), the liner won't go past the chamber on that rifle! The upside of this is you can make the liner a really good fit, so very good accuracy is quite achievable.

When I check fitted the spare liner in an original L1A1 barrel at an RFD's, it clattered down the bore and was about as loose as throwing a sausage down the high street! To be fair, still good enough for 25 yds I suppose .... just about.