Common Knowledge or Received Wisdom?

[Steve H. in N.Y.]

I wonder if they could be talking about CLLE rifles without a safety catch or locking bolt. Were any of these still in service at the time?

[Brian Dick]

The short answer is yes. There were many CLLE rifles still in service at the beginning of WW1.

[jrhead75]

And all had safeties.

[Steve H. in N.Y.]

That's right. Maybe the Charger Loading Lee-Metfords then.

[Ridolpho]

Perhaps in some backwater colonies in distant parts of the Empire MLM 1* or MLM II were still being used. These were the two original models that lacked any "safety" other then the half-bent and cutoff. The Charger Loading Lee-Metford Mk II also lacks the "safety" and, acc. to Skennerton, was converted during the period 1909-1911.

Ridolpho

[Peter Laidler]

I have mentioned the reason for the Cut-Off slots being on some late rifles while not on earlier rifles from the same factory many times in the past. It is all to do with production engineering, learned from investigating the sequences while changing the Bren from Mk1 to Mk1A and also the reason why instead of fully changing, Canada retained a feature that was long obsolescent, useless and due for change.

But the Q's still crop up year after year after.............

[Surpmil]

Rather like the cut off on the No1 MkVI and No4 trials rifles. Would anyone like to guess what the thinking was behind that feature in 1935?

We can say 1935 because it was retained on the No4 MkI "Model C" trials rifles produced that year.

I'd call it a "cultural factor"!

[5thBatt]

The cutoff was omitted from production in 1941, you guys are talking like it was earlier, it was never "reintroduced" with a different function it just carried on as it was after the few years between 1919 & the early 1920s in which it would appear no MkIIIs were manufactured.

[Beerhunter]

I may have missed your point. Surely Mk.III* retro-fitted with a magazine cut-off (and the * barred out) is a reintroduction of the function? My question is still - why? Extra safety device or single-shot?

[Peter Laidler]

I say for single shot. After all, it ain't a safety device due to the fact that the rifle can still be fired. And if there's a 'single shot' in the chamber.........

5th Batt, your thread 18 just doesn't make literal/factual sense to me. I don't know about others but can you elaborate on it. It might just be my literal interpretation of course but.......