Boys Anti=Tank Rifle cast iron dummy. Help Peter! OT

[breakeyp]

OT but we don't have a thread for Boys stuff. I found this this week end. The man who sold it to me didn't have the decency to wait until I had gotten to my car before he started laughing.

Peter do you know of any dummy Boys made up for wet training (surface pitting would seem to indicate continuous water exposure)? It seems too well made to be for a movie. The barrel and receiver are sand cast iron--far more detailed and expensive to make up for a kid's toy. Magazine, safety lever and bottom wood handle assemlby appear to be real. The weight is enough to anoy a ground pounder. I can't find any markings in the rust. I figure I can put it with the real one and mate them, do you want one of the pups---might be .22 or .38 caliber.

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.

[Peter Laidler]

Jeeeeees, never heard of or seen anything like it in my life. But as you say, toooo good to be some one-off casting. Maybe a film prop or something as its military training value would be nil

[browningautorifle]

I don't understand him laughing at you. I think it's great. If you collect that sort of thing, you have to have it. Just like the rubber rifles in the AR family.

[breakeyp]

I have an aluminum/steel M14 that the Marines used when climbing ropes over water hazards. The Army has rubber/steel M16, M60 rubber ducks for the same type of training. Attached are more photos.

[browningautorifle]

We also had rubber AKs and RPGs and the like. I think this sort of thing has always existed in some form or other.

[jonnyc]

As I posted elsewhere, it would look great mounted on the back of my old Landy!

[Beerhunter]

As I posted elsewhere, it would look great mounted on the back of my old Landy!

Although it would be massively out of time.

[Thunderbox]

Is it possibly a drill dummy designed for military applications where the weight is important but where a real gun might get damaged or pinched? I'm thinking of equipment loading trials, etc - maybe for a bren gun carrier, GS mule pack assembly or parachute container. Bit like the "simmo" loads used on demonstrations or air-drop trials.

[Peter Laidler]

Good thinking TBox.......... But wouldn't such a beast feature in the training manuals of the time or wouldn't another one or two have surfaced before now? We do have similar 'weapons' now in the form of the rubber SA80 and the welded-up version, both of which are of no value and thus have no security implications unlike the more lax but accountable DP's

[breakeyp]

But wouldn't such a beast feature in the training manuals of the time or wouldn't another one or two have surfaced before now?

On another forum, reference was made two knowledge of two more like this. I wonder if it did not make the manuals as it was, as you say, not treated as a firearm--more a tool. Oddly no markings are reported.