my long lee winter project

[hopmanhenk]

got me a winter project this weekend; a 1901 long lee enfield I*



thought it would be a good addition to my IMA Lee Metford


there's a lot of things wrong with her;
- missing swivels
- wrong bolt
- damaged and bondo-d stock
- missing volleysight pointer
- and then some





what kind of wood is this? oak?
anyone got parts?

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[smle13]

check ebay, right now they have quite a few complete volley sight sets, im going to get a 1901 MLE i a few weeks, metfords MLE's and early smle mkIII's are by far my favorite.

[Surpmil]

Hm, makes you wonder what colour they were going to paint it.

Nothing for it, but to degrease that stock and soak/steam the ess aitch one tee out of it and probably most of that bondo stuff will just fall out.

After all the ancients used to split rock with wooden wedges made wet...

The tack marks around the wrist of the butt suggest it was once in the care of some swarthy folk east of Eden.

[Gary in Aus]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum but have spent the last few days absorbing loads of info from the many posts on here. Look forward to seeing the after photo's of your winter project. Good luck.

After seeing your photo's I thought I would share some pic's of my own Lee Enfield 1* which came to me by chance around 17 years ago. Unfortunately I didn't take any photo's of it when I got it but it was painted entirely in gloss black paint so you can imagine the mess it was in. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after many hours with a scraper and many coats of paint stripper, I finally got rid of almost all the paint. Used some super fine steel wool to get rid of the fury bits and a couple of coats of oil later the result is not perfect but not too bad either. I was reluctant to go too far with the metal work so have basically left it how I found it under the paint.

Just need a correct bolt type, rear volley sight, correct magazine and front sling swivel to get her looking good. Any ideas on where I might find these would also be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Gary

[Son]

Hi Gary and welcome to milsurps. Looks to me like your rifle is one of the "shortened range pattern" rifle club jobs from pre WW2. Basically, when the rules were changed to adopt the MkIII SMLE for civilian competition, the Lithgow Smal Arms Factory, as well as several gunsmiths at the time, proceded to shorten the Long Lee rifles already in use by club members to comply. These have become collectable in themselves, and as such I congratulate you on the job done to clean it up- It looks great.
Just looking at the way the barrel was done at the muzzle, with regards to the front sight- I'd be interested in finding out what (if any) markings are on it.
There's a few blokes here who know more about these than me, hopefully someone will come along and add to this, but I think your rifle is probably correct to how it was set up, needing the front swivel of course.

I really enjoy the restoration stories... keep us posted on yours, hopmanhenk...

Cheers,
Brad.

[Bindi2]

Also needs the rear range sight not volley sight.( Gary in AUS. )

[Gary in Aus]

Thanks to Son and Bindi2 for the feedback. The wealth of knowledge on here is amazing and certainly gives those of us with limited knowledge a great place to learn a little more. As for the barrel markings, it's a BSA barrel and is marked "Motty Special". I would be keen to know what type of range sight should be fitted if anyone can help out in that department.

Cheers
Gary

[RJW NZ]

lol, I'm pretty sure there's a range sight called a Motty Special, you may have a rifle that was one of his target rifle creations and have various accurizing tuning done to it, very interesting ...

[Son]

Gary, have a look at this old thread from Gunboards. Might give you a few clues. SwedeM63 is the authority on early range rifles and aperture sights. If it's ok with you, I might drop him a line and see if he'll check out your rifle's details.

Motty barrel question

[Bindi2]

BSA made sights that fitted. can not remember the number off hand but Swede will be the one for that info.