G'day there, I've been hanging around the Lee Enfield section trying to cure my Enfield addiction which has alas only worsened, but the other day I had a look at an old MH IC1 carbine that my family has had for a while. And with some of my Enfield knowledge I believe it may be something of an interesting rifle.

Its an 1886 Enfield IC1 with 'SY' marked forward of the breech (I have read this is for an upgraded extractor), some sold out of service marks, yet most interestingly a "Q/|\G" which from what I know is a Queensland Government marking. This same mark appears on the butt-stock along with the Enfield Roundel, a "1" which I believe to mean "First class", the serial which matches the action body, a '6' (Tasmanian military district is the only thing I can link this to atm but that contradicts the qld marks), a sold out of service mark, and finally "R7/97" which I assume to be either a repair or a store date of July 1997.

Another interesting thing is that both under the butt-plate on the butt itself and on the inside surface of the butt-plate is what looks like a set of tallies, with one being only 3 vertical and 1 across (Which seems odd). Now I am not rash enough to think this is some Kill count but I am not sure what else it could be. Is this common to MH rifles?

The rifle itself is very rusted as it sat in a shed, from what I am told, for a very long time, but its otherwise complete but partially disassembled and soaked in oil to halt the rust for now. The rifling is horrendous but with cleaning it'd probably be shootable.

I have looked at Skennertonicon's SAIS book on the MH rifles but found nothing relating to QLD rifles, nor could I find anything about them mentioned on here. The serial on this rifle is 281 (The '3' is from an amnesty as law recquires a 4 digit serial, real shame), and when I think about it a state like qld back in the 1880's can't have had a use for a massive amount of firearms (For police or whatever else. It doesn't have a 'P' or anything anywhere but it would make sense as a mounted police rifle), so does anyone know anything about rifles like this? Serial number range? What they did? How long they served? Etc.

So yeah wondering if anyone has any info or has a rifle similar. I'm gonna clean it up one day when I stop finding Lee-Enfields to repair. Maybe even make up some loads with bertram brass for it too. Very cool rifle.
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