UVF Ulster Lee Speed

[Frederick303]

Old martini 303 conversions are more common found with the hand/UVF mark. Generally there is an issue number on the wood as well. At the time there was a 6 or 10 schilling yearly gun license (old brain forgets the exact sum) required to take a privately owned arm outside of the curtilage of ones domicile, but this was waived for volunteer unit arms or arms sued in volunteer activities (such as full bore target practice). The UVF bought what they could, all of the money was privately raised the there was some cross over between what was private and what was privately owned but marked otherwise. As the UVF units were formally part of the volunteer movement, they were allowed to purchase arms in the trade before the "defense of the realm act" in late 1914 to 1915 put an end to it.