1928 dated BSA Iraqi No.1 MKIII*

[Beerhunter]

I have a similar one. I have come up with the two best theories, at least for me. One is during the British mandate period of the 1920s it was captured and proofed. Or after the initial 1930's contact more surplus was sold to the Iraqis' and then proofed.

I don't see any Proof marks.

[Peter Laidler]

We used to encounter similar 'problems' with the old .38" Enfield revolvers that were supplied to Iraq.

There was a technical info bulletin published in the late 50's or 60's to the effect that many of these Iraqi supplied revolvers had been encountered in UK Military service (presumably from the days of pooled Ordnance stores or wartime happenings.....) that were not UK Military proofed but only civilian proofed prior to sale to Iraq. And it's true because we saw them in Iraq after Gulf 1. In fact I gave one such Iraqi marked and commercially proofed beast to the old RSAF collection

The Ordnance Bulletin of the 50's/60's stated that they had to be returned to Ordnance to be reproofed. I bet they were simply scrapped!

[303 Collector]

I went to a big arms dealer in England last year and there were hundreds and hundreds
of these barrelled actions for sale. Dates were 1928 1929. The barrels seemed reasonable but the trial bolt we took with us jumped the bolt way on most of them.
We were there most of the day and only found 14 serviceable action barrel combinations.
The ones we got have been a pig to head space. One strange thing was that some had butts fitted but they were so badly worn by dragging them along the ground that the brass butt plate had almost worn away and the wood had worn to a paddle shape.

[Eddystone Casey]

I have one, BSA serial L472X dated 1936. Paid $200.00 for it. Spent around $50 to replace the extractor assembly and add a few screws and such that were missing. Looks good, was offered $500.00 for it while at the range. Good Shooter.

[mudgee]

I have a 1935 BSA in the room somewhere all i remember is that the bolt matches the receiver however the bolt number are in Arabic and the receiver numbers are in English. It does have a disc on it with number but can not remember, if i have time i will pull it out and post some photos

[Roger Payne]

I went to the same dealer that 303 collector refers to about two years ago. At the time they had about a thousand rifles, all in lamentable condition, but many of which were worth restoring. I too, took along cleaning equipment & some tools, & out of the total found thirty odd SMLE's, four No4's & a Ross M1910 that were worth buying. The price was cheap, & oddly enough quite a few had very decent bores once cleaned, thus making them worth the asking price for the barrel alone. All in all I bought just over 40 incomplete rifles. IIRC the pile was made up of a mixture of late 1920's BSA Mk3*'s as alluded to above, 1937 to 1940 dated BSA Mk3's, & a plentiful supply of mainly post WW2 Ishapore rifles.
I am slowly rebuilding these rifles, & have one I am toiling with currently that will make a good budget priced shooter for somebody. Those that don't make the grade I'll just sell as deacts.

I was tempted to go back & buy more, if only for the spares, but I gather the prices have increased quite considerably since the time I visited.......

ATB.

[stevesmle]

BSA inter-war production, Graham Priest, quotes in his book The Spirit of The Pike, "In panic the Ministry of Supply telephoned instructions for BSA to increase No. 1 Mk III production even though they had only ordered 150,000 of these rifles from their Small Heath plant since 1919".