1916 Iraqi MkIII

[Homer2]

I picked this one up off of Gunbroker a couple of weeks ago for just over a run of the mill MkIII costs. The seller didn't state anything about Iraq in the subject line, and there was no pic of the Jim unless you emailed him. It is import marked under the III mark, but I can't make out anything except 'unte CA' or something like that. Some sort of California importer probably in the late 80's or early 90's. The nose piece has no number, and the seller stated he added the cut off and did something with the wood. He said the forend was original, but the hand guards and butt stock were changed out. He included the original Iraqi wood, which I switched back. Both hand guards and butt stock have the same Arabic number/letter combination stamped on them. 1917 Barrel, and the bolt is numbered to the rifle from a later date.

I'm curious about some of the markings on the receiver and barrel. Has anyone seen these and know what they mean? It looks like V.S.M., with the 'V' marred, and a 631 under it.





Here are the rest of the pics.
















Forend markings.

Information

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[jrhead75]

VSM = Vickers. The '56 Slaz forestock seems a bit out of place. Did the seller say it was original?

The import mark looks to be from an outfit in El Monte CA...possibly Fed Ord or one of it's offshoots.