By then, the Brits had stopped designating them as "SMLEs", but everyone still called them that. This one appears to have been refurbished at some time in a Royal Army arsenal; a process that apparently included having a drain-bamaged preschooler paint the receiver with black laquer.
The rifle has Mark 1 sights:
Later rifles had two-position peep sights, regulated for 300 and 600 yards, kinda like an old M-16. The Mark-1 sights are click adjustable in elevation for fine work. Like the Mosin rifles, windage can only be adjusted by an armorer.
The bore is in decent shape. The stock is a short one (the Brids made them in three lengths of pull), so I added a slip-on recoil pad. That brought it to the proper length and hell, I was going to do that, anyway.
The rifle does need a good cleaning, which I will get to before the inevitable range trip.
7 comments:
Nice find! And I hope it shoots well for ya!
Congrats on the 'new' rifle. Who built it?
Al_in_Ottawa
Al, beats the hell out of me.
That's strange. There are usually deep stampings on the receiver ring or the flat surface on the left of the receiver. I can't see any in your photos, I guess the paint you mentioned is very thick.
Is that a cross bolt in the second photo?
Al_in_Ottawa
It appears to be a wood screw, set in deep. I can't discern any cracks in the stock that would have led to such a field repair.
There are roll markings, not stampings, on the left side of the receiver. In spots, they're hard to read, because of the free-hand stove-enamel that was applied.
According to the Enfield forum gurus, the Royal Ordnance Factory in Fazakerly was shut down in the mid 1950s. The rifle appears to have been made in the Pakistan Ordnance Factory in 1956.
Oh, very nice indeed!
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