L39 owners weekend reading............

[Peter Laidler]

If the UK MoD had issued or suplied or whatever else, Envoys, 7.62mm CONV's or Enforcers, there WOULD be somewhere in the EMER's a reference, something along the lines '.....Some rifles in the service are marked with xxxxx and these should be treated in the manner prescribed for the L39A1'.

Are thee Enforcers/Envoys and other similars MoD proofed?

Answer to another question re comps use in the Army. No, nothing in the Small Arms Instructions

[Strangely Brown]

Answer to another question re comps use in the Army. No, nothing in the Small Arms Instructions

Roger that Peter; I will see if the Army Rifle Association have any paper work regarding the introduction of the L39A1, the last time I looked in a drawer in the Army Target Shooting Club House Bisley I found some GPO Telegram forms, so there's a good chance old papers may still exist!

[Peter Laidler]

Thought that I'd better include this in case you're all worrying about it.....
The Base Workshop accuracy criteria for the L39 was this:

Field Workshop: Five warming shots will be fired. Followed by a group of 5 rounds. These will be fired from the shoulder over suitable cover from 30 metres and the group size will fall within a circle 1" in diameter
Base Workshops: Pretty well as above but fired from an Enfiield rest and '...the group must fall within a circle of 3/4" diameter.

Note that this is the L39 and you must expect the more highly trained Police 'snipers' to achieve better results than this!

[Thunderbox]

My Envoy was built in 1970 and is serial number E50 Palma Match.

Are sure the rifle wasn't built in 1969? Fultons prepared the Palma rifles in Spring 1970, and the comp was in the summer. The rifles would have had to have been manufactured before Fultons got hold of them, so its a bit sharp for a 1970 rifle.

I currently have:

E10 1969
E39 1969
E142 1969
E311 1969 (Palma 1970)
E329 1969

I'm not sure what the highest Envoy number is, but I think its around 380. Makes the Envoy ones of the rarest Enfields. In UK, you can hardly sell them at all....

[Simon P]

I have No E386 dated 1969.

[Peter Laidler]

Are these commercial Envoys military proofed plus 19T marked bodies, bolts and bolthads or just commercial proof?

Enfield were always struggling to keep the workforce occupied and any work, even small-beer commercial, Home Office etc work was welcomed. All they were still making in any volume were GPMG's and spares and even the GPMG's were not continuous production. Neither was the L4 Bren programme. So any work was welcome

[Brian Dick]

You're absolutely right Thunderbox. I've looked at it again and it's Enfield 69 production but marked Palma 1970. I'm suffering from information overload among other things.

[Simon P]

Envoy E386 only has 19T proof markings plus the sold out of service mark on the rear of the body.

[Brian Dick]

The Envoy I have has the 19T proof on the body, bolt and bolt head but no military proofs. If there are commercial proofs, they must be under the handguard as none are visible otherwise.

[Thunderbox]

Are these commercial Envoys military proofed plus 19T marked bodies, bolts and bolthads or just commercial proof?

Enfield were always struggling to keep the workforce occupied and any work, even small-beer commercial, Home Office etc work was welcomed. All they were still making in any volume were GPMG's and spares and even the GPMG's were not continuous production. Neither was the L4 Bren programme. So any work was welcome

Envoys have the same original proof marks as L39s, L42s & Enforcers - "19T" and "crossed pennants" on the bolthead, bolt body, barrel. Funnily enough, none of those rifles seem to have a "19T" as an original stamp on the action body itself. Looks like Enfield treated all these rifles as military - perhaps they hoped to pick up some more sales that way.

Since the old military marks are not regarded as valid proof, most rifles have subsequently received a scattering of commercial proof marks - sometimes including an additional "19T" or "20T" on the receiver ring (gosh, I wonder if the UK NRA ever noticed that 7.62mm Enfields routinely passed 20T proof without blowing up....?!)