No.1 MkIII - 1953 FTR query

[Peter Laidler]

If a rifle came to us as a Mk3, with c/off it went out like that but if it needed a new fore-end, and we only had the later high sided fore-ends by the 60's, then it went out as a Mk3/1. All of the EY rifles were stripped, examined, packed with grease and re-wired. There were all sorts but new wood and they went out as Mk3/1's. Strangely enough I found a big roll of the wire used to re-wire the old EY's while clearing out the stores at the old ABRO workshop, all labelled up too! The strange thing was that during the whole Ordnance programme, I never saw a discharger cup! I think that we had the rifles but noone had the cups. ho ho ho!

Thinking about it, as I do occasionally - and the forum too (old joke there.....) I'm inclined to agree with TBox in his thread because BSA were COMMERCIAL contractors for a COMMERCIAL post-war/fifties FTR programme and if a rifle came in as a Mk3 then in the commercial world there's absolutely no EMER or ACI or whatever to say it should be sent out as anything else. And if the customer or
prospective buyer is happy, then so be it!

And it's always worth remembering that a Mk3 rifle is a Mk3 by virtue of its body. If you take the cut-off off, then it's still a Mk3 rifle body, albeit hidden under the fore-end. Much the same as a Bren Gun. If you (as we did all the time) put all Mk3 gun parts onto a Mk1 gun, it was STILL a Mk1 gun. Same as putting a Mk3 light weight butt slide and lightweight barrel onto a Mk2. It remains a Mk2 gun!

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[jmoore]

We've had some good older threads on this very same rifle type (No.1 Mk.3* BSA 1953 FTRs), and I'm hunting for photos of mine. Generally birch stocked and suncorited. No magazine cutoffs that I recall.