From what I could read here and there, these N° 2 Mk IV* SMLEs with serial numbers beginning with the AM prefix are rather atypical, as far as N° 2 Mk IV* trainers go.
The information I found was a bit confusing to me, as there seems to be no general consensus as to their ultimate origin - the AM prefix is supposed to stand for (British) Air Ministry but the rifles were sold by Ireland and imported into the USA
in 1991. To make things worse, some of these rifles could have been converted by Parker-Hale from 1936 to 1945, whereas others were Irish SMLEs sent back to England in the early 1950s to be converted there by Parker-Hale. The original Air Ministry (= ex-RAF) trainers were sold to Ireland in the late 1940s but, nonetheless, some of these AM-prefix SMLE trainers were used by ATC units in England up to the 1980s or early 1990s, which still adds to my confusion !
Mine was built on a 1916 BSA Mk III* SMLE (= N° 1 Mk III*). From what I could read and see on the Internet, most if not all of these AM-prefix trainers were typically built on BSA Mk III* rifles - is my assumption correct ?
889 of these .22 cal. SMLE conversions are known to have been imported by Century Arms from Ireland into the US in 1991 - this one wasn't : it was imported to continental Europe by Hege (Germany) and proofed at the Ulm proofhouse (antlers) in 1991 (KB year code). Worthy of interest is the fact that it was imported in the same year as the US AM-prefix SMLEs and falls into the same serial number range as Century Arms ones (lowest recorded : AM 544 ; highest recorded : AM 1534) - mine is # AM 680. I have spotted other "German" AM-prefix trainers : # AM 732 (built on a 1918 Mk III*) and AM 817 (built on a 1917 Mk III*). There is no telling how many of these trainers Hege imported in 1991, but I suppose one hundred would be a maximum, given the size of the European rifle market at that time.
If the more knowledgeable members of the forum could help me decode the markings on the Nock's form, I would be very thankful indeed, as I haven't got the appropriate literature to decipher them.
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