my long lee winter project

[Gary in Aus]

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

That would be much appreciated.

[RJW NZ]

Wow, thats a great bit of history and a great find, well done.
Does someone has a few pictures of the Motty Special sight I could post on enfield resource.com?

[Son]

Gary in Aus- here's the reply I got from Swede regards your rifle. Seems it's a nice piece of history all right...

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Hi Brad, you are spot on in your reply. Harry Motton had a strong connection with BSA rifles generally since prior to the adoption of the short rifle in about 1933 most rifles sold to civilians for target shooting were English Long Lee's.

Many rifle owners opted to change over to the "club pattern" by either shortening the barrel (and wood work) if it was a good accurate job as it was. If the barrel needed changing they then considered fitting the standard new H barrel for the conversion. I didn't check the post to see how the conversion was done. If the barrel and wood was shortened, the best jobs re-profiled to refit the nose cap. The cheaper jobs just cut and shut the foreend and left a vertical line visible where it was pegged together (saving the work of re-profling the wood for the nosecap)

The rifle in the post would would likely have originally had a Motty sight fitted on the four hole BSA patent 1909 plate which the owner retained if it was a good unit. Otherwise a range of other sights may have been added at the same time as the conversion. A really good period piece would be that site, but the other common sight was the 1909 BSA "McCubbin" model 9 sight on the same BSA plate. The latter sight was more expensive than the Motty.

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I don't have a pic of a Motty sight, but I do have one of the BSA side plate he mentioned as well as the No9 sight too (bit small, maybe someone will have a better pic?)

[Gary in Aus]

Thanks for following that up for me Son. I guess I now have the difficult task of tracking down a sight! Anyone point me in the right direction???? Does anyone have a picture of a Motty sight? I would like to get the rifle looking as correct as possible and I suppose tracking down elusive parts is half the fun! On a side note, I took it out for a shot the other day and after 3 initial sighting shots, put 3 shots into a 1 and half inch group at 50 yards using my sleeping bag as a rest. Can't wait to have a go over a bench on the range.

Cheers
Gary