Story of Long Branch Lee Enfields brought back from Belgium?

[Rick]

I bought 20 new and supposedly unissued Long Branch rifles back in the early 1990's when I returned from a deployment with my Bullet Bonus/Mortar Money burning a hole in my pocket. I think this was Distribucorp (or something similar in name) in Quebec; I think the ad was in Shotgun News or something similar. This is almost 30 years ago, so some memories of details are pretty vague.

The rifle I kept has a very finely stamped and small US import stamp on the end of the barrel, presumably meaning the rifles got back to Canada from Belgium by way of a US importer. All the serial numbers were of 93L - 95L serial numbers.

My end of the story is I spent my leave on returning home cleaning all the grease out of all those rifles, then mounting a 12x scope in a no-gunsmithing S/K mount, followed by firing five rounds to settle the scope in and roughly zero, followed by a 10 shot group at 300 yards. This was with a whack of Greek HXP ball ammo that I bought at the same time. I kept the most accurate rifle, and second and third place were given to my younger brothers.

I sold the rest at a huge profit - a $50 markup over what I paid! Where's that time machine when you need it...

Anyways, I assumed at the time the rifles were available in lots of ten because there would arm the ten men in an infantry section should the Russians suddenly pour through the Fulda Gap. Didn't put any more thought than that into it. Other than to wonder why the hell the Belgians were putting Canadian Long Branch rifles into presumably war stores at a time that they were making the FN FAL?

Recent posts saying that Long Branch never serial number stamped magazines to rifles, but the Greeks did that with rifles they got from Long Branch got me thinking. My brother says the Long Branch he got from me has a matching serial number. I had assumed for a long time my rifle was separated from it's original magazine, because the magazine it came with has no serial number stamp.

My conclusion is that these Long Branches that supposedly returned to Canada from Belgium back in the early 1990's had a more complex return home than I assumed. The US stamp says that, if nothing else, wherever they actually came from, the one certain thing is they came through the US prior to returning to Canada.

And (even if the ad back then was accurate in saying they were returned Long Branches from Belgium) at least some of them were in Greek hands where they got the magazine stamps.

Any of our resident Lee Enfield/Long Branch experts know all the details of the supposedly Belgian returns that were sold back in the early 1990's?

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