SMLE Mk1***

[WolfGolf96]

So today I bought a 1907 SMLE Mk1***. I have always wanted a SMLE dated Pre WW1 so I snagged it. Got it cheap as it has been stripped to the bare essentials. Would it be worth trying to restore to Mk1*** standards, MkIII*, or just leave it at what it is?

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.

[Maxwell Smart]

A lot of work ahead to restore to Mk1***.

Replacement furniture, magazine, nosecap, bolthead charger guide most obvious things required.

[CINDERS]

The rifles serial on the reinforce crossed out and another substituted why! would this have been done when the E R was put on also does this mean Emergency Reserve use! TIA

[Frederick303]

No one seems to know the relationship between why the ER, CR and GR series prefixes were chosen, other than they went to Ireland in 1923 as part of a ~10,000 rifle shipment, on top of the previous 27,600 re-numberd MK III rifles.

much of the details are located here.

Fritz's FF marked Enfield sticky

[henry r]

Cinders. In the early days the barrel was the control part so when a barrel was swapped the action was re numbered to the new barrel.

[CINDERS]

Copied it so others may share in the information it may help in the knowledge base of this site;
The Irish SMLE story, part 1, 1919 to 1925
By Frederick

In order to give a detailed answer to the questions asked in this thread, one has to go back to just prior the start of the Irish civil war.

The Free State army was organized on 16 January 1921, after the signing of the peace treaty. Independence was formally declared on 3 May 1921

The first 100 SMLE MK III rifles were sent to Ireland provisional troops in early February of 1921. Shipments halted briefly in March due to IRA seizure of English supplied arms, to be resumed after April 16th. There was also the suspicion (subsequently verified) that Michael Collins was supplying IRA units in Northern Ireland with U.K. supplied arms to use against the RUC and Ulster “Specials”. The UK took a dim view of this. It was after this break that the supplied rifles have new unique serial numbers applied and the old serial numbers lined out. This work was all done, in so far as examination of rifles markings allow, at Enfield Lock.

Between January 16 and June of 1922 England provided the Irish Free State with 11,900 rifles, 4200 revolvers and 79 machine guns.

By June of 1922 the opposing IRA forces had only 6,780 rifles and a small number of machineguns, the remaining arms being made up of shotguns (between 3,000 and 6,000). Of the rifle, only a subset were Enfield Rifles, a few Model 71 Mausers and many 98 Mausers being among the arms used by the IRA (as well as Mauser model 95 rifles, Gras and level rifles and pretty much anything that the IRA could smuggle in). A sizeable quantity of GEW 1898 rifles were imported into Waterford in March of 1922. It is likely that there were at 1500 to 2000 Gew 98 rifles based on that incident and arms brought in by returning soldiers from WWI. The source of ant-treaty IRA SMLE rifles were three fold, some were smuggled in between 1918 and 1922, about 3,000 were taken off of retreating British troops (which were told not to provoke any incident) or taken off of newly created free state forces that did not resist in Cork county. The last source was those rifles captured in fighting from either the RIC or the other British forces during the war of independence. The exact numbers of Enfields in the above figures of 6,780 is unknown, but it is likely on the order of 3,500~to just under 4,000 rifles.

Up to September of 1922 England provided The Irish Free State (pro treaty IRA) with 27,400 rifles, 6,606 revolvers and 249 machine guns.

By August of 1922 20,060 of the rifles were distributed to troops, the remainders were in stores. By the end of the 1922, most all stocks of rifles had been issued out. The Free State started asking for more rifles from the UK.

In between the fall of 1922 and the end of 1923 some quantity of arms were turned over to the Free State so it could fight the IRA in the civil war. Numbers of rifles delivered unknown but a review of the pictures of Free state troops, published figures of rifles stocks and serial number studies indicate that about 10,000 SMLE MK I*** rifles were delivered at this time, along with a small stock of SMLE MK III rifles (or the SMLE rifles had been supplied after September of 1922 and before the spring of 1923). All had new serial numbers applied. The deliveries did include 9-18 pounders and limited stocks of shells, as well as numbers of Morris armoured cars. It is most likely that Enfield rifles were in these shipments in or around mid 1923, June of 1923 being the best guess, based on the various parliamentary commentaries that have come to light. It would seem after this event that no further rifles were supplied by Great Britain, as it was seen that the Irish Free State was going to be able to subdue the Anti-treaty faction.

When the IRA went underground in 1924, they told their man to dump or stash their arms, as to be caught with arms by that time was a death sentence. Free State army captured many of the arms used by the IRA by 1925, by digging them up or searching building, tip-offs on the location, or torture to procure the location. Most were in poor condition. After the end of the Irish Civil war large quantities of captured arms were dumped in the Irish Sea. Documented arms were captured pistols and revolvers of non-standard pattern (not .455 cal). Though not documented, the lack of any sales records indicate Mauser rifles and other odd ball arms were destroyed at this time (other than a small numbers retained for various purposes). It would seem that the Irish Free State sought to only retain those arms that were SMLE pattern, though there were small stocks of CLLE and possibly Ross rifles retained.

Of the 27,500 renumbered SMLE rifles supplied to the Irish army, approximately 500 were supplied to the IRA in exchange for unmarked rifles by in July 1922. Of these 500 rifles ~300 to 400 were destroyed in the siege of the Dublin court house. In addition a small number of unmarked SMLE rifles had been provided early in 1921, between 100 and 1000 rifles before the new serial numbers were applied.

In 1925 the Irish Free State Army had 42,500 rifles on hand, of which only 8,000 were considered first line (serviceable). This number includes all of the rifles turned in or captured by the army in the civil war, many of which were not Lee Enfield pattern rifles. Also supposedly used were limited numbers of Ross Mk III rifles, (as it is known that at least 21 were captured by the IRA between 1919 and 1921) though no pictures exist or any surplus sales record.

Given the known facts we can estimate the Irish Free states stock of arms in 1925, as follows:

SMLE MK III/III* with new added serial numbers ~26,800 to 27,200
SMLE MK III with existing serial numbers ~5,600 to 5,900
SMLE MK I***, second line condition: ~9,800 to 9,900
Ross rifles, RIC carbines, Mausers retained ~100 rifles
Total stocks ~42,500

Serial numbers: So now you are wondering, what about the newly applied serial numbers. What were they? Well here is the code, published for the first time:

The new SMLE MK III serial numbers started with N1 , went to the N999, then to O1000 to O1999, then P2000 to P2999 and so on until you get to M25000. Now when they got to M25999, instead of using a new letter they just continued the series up to around M27500. The serial number sampled to date range from N17 to M27489, so there may be some numbers above that have not been found yet. That is the key to identifying an Irish SMLE MKIII or III* that was OFFICALLY supplied to the Irish free state by the British in 1921 to 1923 time frame. Not the FF stamp, which comes later. Some quantities of rifles, between 100 and most likely under 1000 were also supplied with the original serial numbers intact between February of 1921 and March of 1921.

Now the code for the SMLE MK I***: There are 3 serial ranges, ER, CR and G. ER rifles are in original SMLE MK I*** shape (many ex navy rifles) CR rifles have had the MK I*** forend inletted for the MK III rear handguard, have a MK III rear sight on the existing MK I rear sight base and have a MK III or MK I modified to MK II shape rear handguard. G refers to rifles that were wire wrapped for grenade launching use. Here the official records do not exist for how many were sent out but it would seem based on the current research that ~10,000 or just short of that were sent over around June of 1923. That is by no means exact, but the best guess working with the data that does exist.

The serial number ranges found to date in a sample size of 172 rifles is as follows:
ER rifles, ER 1 to 9600
CR rifles CR 1 to 4060
G rifles G1 to G2185 (supposedly seen up to G 3000, no actual samples documented)

Now an observant chap will note this adds up to more than 10,000 rifles. From taking the serial numbers and running them through a bit of statistical analysis, it would seem the serial numbers were run concurrent, rather than in sequence. That is the serial numbers started with 1 and run through 9600, with the CR and ER rifles being mixed in. It would seem the first 400 of the G rifles had only the G serial number applied, there was no lined out ER number as one finds post G538. So if this analysis is correct (and ultimately the larger the sample size gets the easier it will be to prove or disprove this hypothesis) the serial numbers run as follows:

1-9600 ER and CR prefixes, no over lapping numbers (less one or two mistakes, none seen to date). The numbers seem to run in blocks, such as there are very few low number CR rifles under CR 478, where as there are a lot of ER numbers in this range. The same pattern seems to exist up to about serial number 4060, after which no CR serial numbers show up. The G numbers run from G1 (which was actually a NRF MK III* rifle) to G377 with the possibility of this number running as high as G 650. Between G652 and G2185 the rifles seem to have been reworked later as the ER numbers are canceled out and a new G number applied. Simply stated the data base of G marked rifles is only 28 in number, too few to allow a better estimation.

The above is based on published sources and examination of rifles in the data base I have been building. As of today it includes over 1250 arms, with 1124 of them being Enfields. Of that figure, 103 are SMLE MK III, 172 are SMLE MK I*** and 82 are RIC carbines. Other than the theory about the SMLE MKI*** rifles serial number ranges and assignment everything above can be traced back to a written source and is not conjecture.

If folks are interested I can also put down what occurred in the interwar period and the WWII to post war period, through the final disposition of rifles. The research is by no means complete so some of what would be written in this interval would be conjecture based on evidence collected to date.

[Ridolpho]

WolfGolg96: I'm a big fan of the Mk I smle's but I think if I owned this rifle I might consider simply fitting it into a Mk III forend with Mk III handguards and ancillary hardware. The main missing part from a functionality point of view appears to be he sliding piece on the bolt-head and you might focus on restoring that. This would leave you with a decent looking, and functional rifle still displaying many of the Mk I attributes. You could then make sourcing all necessary missing mk I components for complete restoration a very long term project if so inclined.

Ridolpho

[Frederick303]

There was a chap in the UK (EFD) that makes the charger head for around 80 dollars. I have seen one and it looks pretty goo, except for the lack of markings it is sport on.

Though it is no longer shown on their site, Springfield Sporters used to have the MK I Nosecap for 20 bucks. If you call them they might sell you one.

I would not buy wood from Springfield, it is Indian and would look really off.