My Rifle - Aussie clone.

[Woodsy]

The great bulk of the NZ L1A1's were used by the Army and saw a lot of use (Borneo, Vietnam, etc) and many were rebuilt at Base Ordnance Depot, Trentham. It was the other unit issues (Logistics, Artillery, Air Force and Navy) that survived in good order but not very big numbers of them. I bought 1,000 off the Government Stores Board in 1988 and only about 6 good originals among them (my one pictured being the best, and lowest number NZ^43. Only the first 1,000 rifles were NZ numbered on the left side of the mag well). There were about 10 tidy refurbished examples and the rest were well used with about 10 suitable for parts only. Original finish examples are identified by the serial numbers being bright from being engraved after finishing. Many were reparkerised at Trentham and their numbers are black.

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[mrclark303]

The great bulk of the NZ L1A1's were used by the Army and saw a lot of use (Borneo, Vietnam, etc) and many were rebuilt at Base Ordnance Depot, Trentham. It was the other unit issues (Logistics, Artillery, Air Force and Navy) that survived in good order but not very big numbers of them. I bought 1,000 off the Government Stores Board in 1988 and only about 6 good originals among them (my one pictured being the best, and lowest number NZ^43. Only the first 1,000 rifles were NZ numbered on the left side of the mag well). There were about 10 tidy refurbished examples and the rest were well used with about 10 suitable for parts only. Original finish examples are identified by the serial numbers being bright from being engraved after finishing. Many were reparkerised at Trentham and their numbers are black.

Mine was one of the batch sold to the UK and ended up with Helston Gunsmiths, subsequently being broken down to parts, the Bolt group, receiver and TMH stored together as a parts kit.

I bought mine a while back now (AD64) and had it rebuilt with a new barrel, the three prong FE is wrong, but only us anoraks would know!

She had a rather battered suncorite finish, so I repainted her.

She represents a later date service example in her current guise.