german marked SMLE (real or fake?)

[Claven2]

I can assure you the dealer would not have faked the rifle. I know the guy well and he would not do that. That being said, nobody has shown proof this rifle was in a pallet shipment. It's anecdotal at best. Even the registry didn't exist when those pallets came in so there likely IS no documentation.

The dealer goes to gunshows and shops and buys inventory regularly and after millions of transactions, his memory is not THAT good.

Now as for metal stamps over blue or parkerizing - how many people here have stamped rifles that were blue or parked already? I know I have. Quite regularly, in fact, because I'm a part time machinst and gun owners have often brought me their unserialized guns to be stamped in compliance with the stoopid Canadian registry laws. I've stamped hundreds. Unless the stamps are of low quality and burred up, there IS no finish disturbed from stamping the metal. It is displaced, but not abraded. Parkerizing is either a zinc or manganese phosphate that adheres chemically to the surface of the gun and like blueing it does not flake off when stamped.

[villiers]

Am I glad that I´m not a collector! I turned down a Luger once as it had an SS stamp on it. My three rifles (2 Enfields and one Mauser) are all in perfect condition and I wouldn´t exchange one of them for all the stamps in China.

[Son]

I can assure you the dealer would not have faked the rifle. I know the guy well and he would not do that. That being said, nobody has shown proof this rifle was in a pallet shipment. It's anecdotal at best. Even the registry didn't exist when those pallets came in so there likely IS no documentation.

The dealer goes to gunshows and shops and buys inventory regularly and after millions of transactions, his memory is not THAT good.

Now as for metal stamps over blue or parkerizing - how many people here have stamped rifles that were blue or parked already? I know I have. Quite regularly, in fact, because I'm a part time machinst and gun owners have often brought me their unserialized guns to be stamped in compliance with the stoopid Canadian registry laws. I've stamped hundreds. Unless the stamps are of low quality and burred up, there IS no finish disturbed from stamping the metal. It is displaced, but not abraded. Parkerizing is either a zinc or manganese phosphate that adheres chemically to the surface of the gun and like blueing it does not flake off when stamped.

I too have stamped and engraved many weapons with a variety if finishes. It's part of my job. As hard as the parkerizing processes finish is, it still can be cut by a sharp edged stamp. When I asked the question, I was looking to see if it could be proved the stamp was applied after the parkerize- a cut through the finish to shiny metal or any disturbance of the finish would have done that conclusively. All I could do was repeat the answer I got, even though it didn't help the cause either way.

[enfield303t]

I think the owner has purchased millions of guns but would wager has not done MILLIONS of transactions and personally I know when I experience something very odd I remember the details forever and that is why I believe the owner when he told me how this Enfield came into his possession. Hopefully someday more information will be available on this gun and if I have to "eat crow" I will glady do it, it might be even more interesting if other people have to do the eating instead.

[finloq]

It's kind of like chess, the more times that you get beat, the more you learn.
Every time that someone more experienced points out a fallacy of mine, I learn something.
I am though, proud to be a sophist.

[Brian Dick]

Re-posting from earlier feedback, now with pics attached .....

I was going to keep quiet but what the Hell. I have one of these SMLE's that I purchased several years ago at a show. It's a 1918 SSA with a mismatch bolt in good, original condition. I bought the rifle, not the story and paid a bit of a premium at the time but nothing extreme. It's marked totally different with just a tiny droopy wing eagle, (pre 1941), apparently applied in Liege, Belgium on both barrel and receiver ring. It has a small Luftwaffe eagle stamped on the right side of the buttstock with L.Z.A. stamped underneath it. I showed this rifle to Ian Skennerton and he photographed it at the time. It turned up in his Arms and Militaria magazine in an article by Brian Labudda and was shrugged off publically as a blatant fake and he said the stamps could be readily purchased at Sarco. I did further research and found out that it wasn't true. I happen to know Charlie Steen and he's never sold those type stamps. Ian also met the previous owner of the rifle at Tulsa and was told the story and he phoned me back to say he wasn't convinced it's a fake anymore so there you go. I don't think this one is a fake but I really don't know. I have photos somewhere and if I can find them, I'll get Badger to post them for me. Unfortunately, the rifle has been tainted by an article in a magazine with world wide circulation so maybe it's tainted forever because a self proclaimed expurt says so.

[Son]

At least they admitted to you they were not sure... Have seen other similar cases, well, best left at that.

[enfield303t]

Brian, thank for the posting and a very interesting rifle. I agree with your quote of "expurts", seems to me if "they" haven't experienced it or seen it then it must be a fake. I would love to have your rifle and seeing as it is so tainted would you sell it to me at a very reasonable price?

Remember Freud was such a great expert...his ideas have had so many holes shot in them they look like Swiss cheese.

[smellie]

Guys, I have been watching this rifle on three boards. Simply put, I have nothing to add to this debate. I like to get old rifles and make them work. The Lee-Enfield is one of my favourites, but that's about as far as it goes.

That said, somebody really ought to point out that the Lee-Enfield rifle has really been around this old world of ours. Fritz got heaps of them on the Western Front every time some hare-brained scheme for 'straightening the Line' came about or another 'Big Push' took place.... with the concomitant horrific casaualties to our Armies. In Belgium, they are still digging up men and rifles that just, plain disappeared. One of these days they might even dig up a couple of my great-uncles who are still 'missing in action'! So Fritz had lots of LEs, right from 1914 onward. Remember, we RETREATED at Mons, and that was only the first in a line of screaming disasters. The Kaiserliche Schutztruppe in DOA picked up enough just at Tanga that they were able to use the LE as one of their main fighting rifles for the remainder of the Great War.

Now come to the Second Great Bloodletting. Dunkirk. Dieppe. The "Benghazi Sweepstakes" every few months. There must have been at least ONE lost in Italy. The Baltic States were lousy with LEs: the LE and the Ross were their official rifles.

Fritz had his hands on a whole bunch of them at one time or another. That is historical fact.

Now we come to the rifle. I ran into its twin at the Brandon Gun Show about 10 years ago.
"Interesting," was one comment.
"Fake," was another.
"TWO TWENTY-FIVE," was another (in a roar), then, quietly, "Oh well, it does have an awful nice barrel."

The rifle went to Winnipeg and I couldn't raise the money, so that was that. I know the dealer. He is a decent guy and honest. As to the horrific 'premium' he was asking, it worked out to about 25 bucks, 40 at most, but he pays shipping, too.

I have no idea if it was 'real' or not, but it had that smell about it. I would have been MOST happy to have obtained it.

But there ARE more out there,

BTW, I am told (although I do not have one) that the Germans actually manufactured .303 ammunition with lacquered-steel cases. That would tend to indicate a large number of .303 rifles in German Service.

Be even stranger if a few DIDN'T get marked.

FWIW (likely not much).

[enfield303t]

smellie, I hava a pretty extensive ammunition collection dating prior to the American Civil War but no German made .303. If someone has a spare and wants to part with it I would be willing to buy it at a fair price.