Now here's a thing.....

[Peter Laidler]

This won’t affect anyone unless they have a UK made L1A1 but I was talking to someone at Bisley the other day who’d bought a UK made dewat L1A1 rifle and wanted to know why on this and his friends dewat L1A1’s the breech blocks and carriers (the BB&C) were all numbered to the rifle. The answer is quite simple really, to keep them as matched sets. I always had my doubts as to the validity of numbering the actual carrier* but if the EMER says so, then so be it!

BUT....., unlike other weapons, like the Bren and L4’s with the usual A-12345 type number on the barrel, breech block and piston assembly, the number on the BB&C of our L1A1’s was in a slightly different format. The EMER specified the number should be UE or UB A-12345. This specifies the maker of the gun as well as the serial number. Why he asked?

The reason for this is lost in time from the earliest days of series production when production from the strike bound Fazakerley factory was transferred to BSA. The Fazakerley allocation of serial numbers was changed slightly for several reasons I won’t go into – but commercial accountability was one - and moved over to BSA. In reality, it meant that for some considerable time at BSA/Enfield there was a duplication of the actual NUMBER part of the serial number. The whole format remained the same but you COULD get a case where there would be TWO rifles together with
UE58A-12345 and
UB58A-12345 And in the original scheme of things, two BB&C’s could be present both reading A-12345. See what I mean……?

This was soon noticed and a technical instruction/bulletin was issued and it was decided that the L1A1 rifle BB&C’s would be cross referenced with the number AND the manufacturer. This way there would be no doubt. That’s why the L1A1’s are marked UEA-12345 or UBA-12345 while the Bren/L4 et al are simply A-12345. After all they are all UE!

With the advent of pooled Australian/Malayan/New Zealand Ordnance stocks in Malaya came about and subsequent purchases were made from Australia it made no difference because there could be no confusion between the AD numbering system. And presumably, by then, the actual chances of two identical numbers being together were beyond remote!

There another quite useless bit of ancient info for you L1A1 nerds

*because all the BBC does is carry the breech block, press it down to lock, lift it up to unlock and trip the safety (or automatic) sear

Information

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