P-14 Aus Sniper Rifle

[Roger Payne]

This is most interesting. I'd never heard of Lithgow set up P'14 snipers. It would be nice to know more precise details of the manufacturers & the markings of all rifles or barrelled actions that Brian & Ian saw at SAF Lithgow back in 1979. The Remington set up certainly sounds a conundrum, & one of the possibilities is of course a sniper assembled after WW1 specifically for Australian requirements. The same could be said of the Winchester made rifles, but it would be nice to see some more evidence as I would have thought that they could just as easily be PPCo set up WW1 era rifles, with additional markings added during their Australian service history. I have to agree with Promo about the 'W' prefix. In my limited experience of P'14 snipers (I have owned about half a dozen, including one Irish contract rifle, & have seen a probably a couple of dozen others in collections or museums which is by no means a huge amount), the W was not routinely added to prefix the serial number when it was relocated to the right rear sight ear. From what I can gather it seems to be a feature of the Irish contract rifles.

Whilst looking to see if I had any saved information that would contribute to this discussion I found the old torn out picture (from Guns Review) shown - from a Weller & Dufty auction of the late 1980's. The rifle here seems to be one of the Winchesters with 'augmented markings'. I don't know if the scope case is matching, but it looks to be British WW1 era, with the typical leather trim to the edges of the webbing. The front mount base also appears to have the typical contours of the run of production PPCo set up WW1 era rifles. Whilst Lithgow could have mimicked the precise contours of the base they didn't bother with the No1 MkIII * H (T)'s, nor did BSA with the Irish rifles.....

Some Lithgow provenance barrelled actions with their mount bases still on them would be really helpful.........short of finding surviving documentation.