Transitional Mk I barrel carry handle sleeve?

[TactAdv]

This is interesting. I found this barrel with what clearly appears to be a transitional Mk I style forged carry handle sleeve, but one finished with ONLY one set of lightening holes in the sleeve body- like a std fabricated Mk II??

It's (currently) on a '42-dated Enfield Mk I barrel assembly; No idea of it is original to that particular tube when it was made, but the date is telling.

Opinions? Comments?? Anybody else ever see what I tentatively presume is an uncommon variation?? (Peter- Have you ever run across this variation; were you able to document it?)
-TomH

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[TactAdv]

This is interesting. I found this barrel with what clearly appears to be a transitional Mk I style forged carry handle sleeve, but one finished with ONLY one set of lightening holes in the sleeve body- like a std fabricated Mk II??

It's (currently) on a '42-dated Enfield Mk I barrel assembly; No idea of it is original to that particular tube when it was made, but the date is telling.

Opinions? Comments?? Anybody else ever see what I tentatively presume is an uncommon variation?? (Peter- Have you ever run across this variation; were you able to document it?)
-TomH

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Note- I found another one, pictured last, clearly showing Enfield markings.
-TomH

[Peter Laidler]

That's an astute observation Tom! There were several transitional stages of the c/h sleeve including one where most of the cooling(?) holes were deleted but the flange around the rear and the intricate machining (shown) was retained. But eventually they eventually succumbed to the cheap fabricated Mk2 type. I often used to wonder just how much extra 'cooling' the holes actually offered! Or was it a weight thing?

I bet that photo maestro KevG has a photo montage of the various stages of transformation. Are you there Kev?

Incidentally, we used to keep all of our broken carrying handles as shown by yours Tom and patch repair them in bulk. The Mk1 types were bad news so we'd just repair the wood and then turn down to Mk2 shape, fit a Mk2 end plate and be done with it.

I say 'we' in a royal 'we' sense! The Armourers would patch them but generally, the carpenters shop would turn them down and finish them off. I think I showed some repaired ones somewhere - once!

[TactAdv]

I often used to wonder just how much extra 'cooling' the holes actually offered! Or was it a weight thing?

Peter......I'm kind of believing that that single set of holes that continue to remain through all variants of these carry handles might actually be intended primarily as a point to introduce lubricant into the track there around the barrel tube where the detent pin slips around??? Without some way to get lube into that area, a lot of those sleeves might well jam solid after awhile.......plus too, having the holes allows gunk and foreign matter a way out....as one rotates the sleeve around the track and that pin pushes crap around the track and out as it is rotated back and forth.

Really the only useful reason to still go to the extra step of drilling the holes??
-TomH

[Peter Laidler]

Yep, see the point but a hole to let stuff out also lets stuff in too, especially dust, sand and crap! I'm not sure that any grease or lube would remain intact after the first few magazines. People were always on about small holes in the rear of magazines so you could see how many rounds were left. All very well, but not so good when you're fighting in the Gulf where the dust comes like fine cement dust - and by the bucket-full!