No4's converted to 7.62mm

[Strangely Brown]

Peter, was there ever any official work re the above to fit the L1A1 magazine to No4 recievers?

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[Peter Laidler]

I never saw or heard of one I have to admit. It's be a bit of a job bit the Indians did it successfully (?)

The papers that detailed the conversion of the Bren from .303" to 7.62mm mentioned many, many magazine configuration problems. The worst being the smaller base rim diameter (the BRD) which meant having to put the magazine lower into the housing/well JUST enough to let the feed horns push the base but not enough to let them hit the primer area. But, my oh my, when they perfected it with the L4A2, didn't they do well?

Anyway, the answer to the question is I don't think so. After all, in 1965 we already had 60,000 No4 7.62mm magazines stuck in store from the ill fated Arms for India deal that they didn't want ofter we messed them around and the TA didn't need because by then the TA Infantry was almost fully equipped with the L1A1. It was only the rear echelon troops who had No4's and by '68, the whole of the UK Military had them.

[limpetmine]

Peter,
Did those 60,000 magazines go to the crusher? As few as are around, it seems they didn't get released to the public.

[Thunderbox]

The Indians cheated - they just made an SMLE mag that looked like an L1A1 item.....

The problem is that the front of a FAL mag is so wide that the Enfield lower receiver/mag well needs to be either milled out so that its paper-thin, or somehow reforged.

[Peter Laidler]

The magazines.... The 60,000 magazines and extractors were retained in Ordnance and when the L42's came on stream, this is what they used. Hence them all being dated 1965. Mystery solved.

The L42 magazine part number was still good until about 8 years ago but alas, all gone now