Bit by the Enfield bug

[w8lftr]

Howdy all,

Recently got bit by the Enfield bug. Picked up this BSA Dispersal No 1 Mk III stamped 1940. I need to get it headspaced and get it shot. Amazed at how smooth and quick the action is even for this leftie. Now I need a couple more, maybe a nice No 4 Mk1 or 2, a nice WW1 rifle.....




w8lftr

Information

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[traindriver]

Yes the bug got me back in May and I've not been the same since. Just see it getting worse, the more guns you get the deeper the sickness

[Son]

You do eventually build up a bit of immunity to it after about 15 or twenty years... but relapses tend to be more expensive....

BTW, welcome w8lfr... and congrats on the great start to a long and happy illness

[SpikeDD]

You do eventually build up a bit of immunity to it after about 15 or twenty years... but relapses tend to be more expensive....

BTW, welcome w8lfr... and congrats on the great start to a long and happy illness

I'll second that! Welcome to the mad house !

[smellie]

I would not call that a Dispersal rifle myself, being that it was made in the original BSA plant at Small Heath before it was bombed. What I WOULD call it would be a very nice toy.

Read what Captain Laidler has had to say regarding headspace on the Lee-Enfield rifle; they are very forgiving and not really as critical as people think. RIMMED ammunition just doesnt have the awful problems that surface with rimless ammo. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why anyone would even bother with rimless ammunition!

If the rifle matches up okay, I would save the gunsmith money for a down-payment for the next rifle...... and there WILL be a next one, friend W8lftr: this disease is incurable. Only palliative care is available and the awful pain only may be assuaged by getting ANOTHER Lee-Enfield!

Welcome aboard, friend!

[w8lftr]

Thanks for the welcome. Smellie, so it's not a dispersal rifle? All the numbers match and the bore is shiny so I think it's a good start.

w8lftr

[SpikeDD]

Hello w8lftr,
I can't speak for smellie but from what I can tell from the markings on your butsocket, your rifle is certainly a Dispersal, an early one at that and, a very nice one! The dead giveaway is the lone " B" instead of B.S.A. Co. Indeed a very good start.

[Baal]

Welcome to Milsurps! I managed to go 4 years between my 1st and 2nd Enfield purchases. By the end of year 5 I was up to 10 of them

[A square 10]

congrats on a very nice early war BSA , this was the only mfgr of no1 rifles durring the war in england - rest were making no4s

i think what was being illuded to in the non-dispersal comment was that it was produced before the bombing caused the 'dispersal' of the manufacturing process from the small heath plant ,
but the first bombing raid occured in august of that year stopping production , and again in november resulting in 'dispersal' of the equipment ,

so it kinda depends on the month as to if its technically a dispersal or not , id suspect that anything marked by BSA after august could be so called as they would have been parts put together elsewhere albeit made before the bombing ,

im fine calling it one , mines a 42 so i hold it as one , you can too ,
but you can see why it could get to be a point of discussion with the technical thinking collector ,

[smellie]

Sorry, likely my bad.

When I think of a 'dispersal' rifle, I am thinking of the ones that you have to have a Captain Terrific Decoder Ring just to figure out what was made where. When they finally got the 'dispersal' thing into full operation, the manufacturing codes took pages of small print to decipher. This one is not that bad.

This is an early rifle, shows signs of rushed production. Likely it was made when nasty things were happening but not after full dispersal had been accomplished.

Still, it's a darned nice rifle.

BSA maintained the entire Small Heath plant at their own expense, for over 20 years, during which time they built some commercials and a couple of small military contracts totalling a little over 32,000 rifles. The War Office wasn't even interested, gave them the brush-off repeatedly until after Dunkirk, when they realised that they had an army but the army was terribly underequipped. Then, of course, it was "we'll take a million, but we want them tomorrow morning!". I think this rifle comes from that terrible 'emergency' period when things were beginning to rebuild after Dunkirk.

Can anyone offer anything better? I'm guessing, but you're not supposed to know that. I would like to KNOW also, but I don't have the serial number data.... and that's where the secret is hid.

Still think it's a heck of a nice rifle. I got its brother just a while back, but Bubba got to it first, so now I am awaiting those 10,000 sets of wood that are supposed to be coming here.
.