Lee Enfield no1 mk3* lithgow 1941 FTR 1957 full wood.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The re-numbering of the barrel is not exactly "forced matching", just the way things were done. The old number is still visible so that some idea of its provenance is retained in the Ordnance system. If a rifle got mangled by a truck running over the body, the rest would be savaged and fed back into the "system' as parts, or simply sent for "F.T.R." (Factory Thorough Repair.), a fancy name for "rebuild to current factory standards".

This still happens today to some extent.

The body also appears to have been re-marked on the right side of the breech ring at some stage

There is a "trick" to removing that outer band with the sling swivel attached. The properly installed originals have the thread-end of the screw staked / spread. The end of this screw is even specially machined to enable this. The correct way to remove them is to carefully drill away the 'flared" bit. Failure to do this means you will cheerfully back a wildly oversized thread section through the thread in the band. Bad enough with the "malleable cast iron" version; totally destructive on the brass bands.

Towards the end of the service life of these rifles, there was even an allowance for the use of a "substitute" BA threaded screw. The originals had a "special" Enfield thread. Not only that, EVERY time an armourer had to do ANYTHING that required the removal of the woodwork, the band had to be removed first, accompanied by the destruction of the screw.

These BA substitutes were a little larger in diameter and after a little creative re-tapping of the band thread, did the job nicely.