Britain’s Only Repeating Trainer: the No7 Mk I

This rifle is coming up for sale at Rock Island on June 23.

Developed by BSA immediately after World War Two, the No7 MkI training rifle was the only one of the British Enfield trainers to use a magazine. Only 2500 of these rifles were produced, contracted by the Royal Air Force and delivered in 1948. Their magazine is a commercial BSA 5-round magazine modified slightly to latch into a housing inside a regular No4 Enfield magazine body. This makes them a particularly enjoyable rifle for range shooting, as well as one of the scarcest of the standard British trainers.
Note that Canada also developed and adopted a No7 MkI .22 rimfire trainer, but that type is a single shot design, and does not share any parts with the British No7 MkI.

9 Comments

  1. Not the only repeating 22 Trainer, there was a Parker Hiscock magazine for the No 1 MKIII. Rare as rocking horse poo but you see them from time to time here in Aust.

    • Don’t forget the 22 Patt. 1918 which used 303 dummy rounds as a carrier for 22 cartridges to feed from a standard 303 mag. Bloke in Sydney had one for sale and it wasn’t bloody cheap either.

    • Only the 1920s prototypes of the rifle that became the number, had magazine cut offs.

      Iirc, the wood for the fore end continued with the cutout for the magazine cut off.

      The number 4 receivers were manufactured until late production with a square reinforce at the front of the right hand receiver rail, for the pivot pin of the none existanti cut off.

      I don’t know whether it served any purpose during manufacture, such as indexing the receiver in a fixture, or as a reference point for measuring,

      Or whether it was just too much trouble to modify the stock of drawings to eliminate the thing.

      The state sector ( militaries included) in every time and every place, has always been hideously bureautwatic. So I suspect that the difficulty was more likely to be with modifying the drawings

  2. [off-topic so ignore if you wish]
    Recently, I find article about US Army third arm
    http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/03/09/us-army-developing-third-arm-soldiers/
    this reminded me about one photo from past:
    https://strangernn.livejournal.com/1513121.html
    which did not work due to mainly problems with aiming.
    I am not sure about that U.S. third arm, it seems to fit well into vintage POPULAR MECHANICS issue, but not necessarily for real usage. However when I see mention of M240, then I have enlightenment! They want to solve problem using most detour solution they could find, rather than search for lighter replacement of M240. I am wondering how they want to provide energy for that arm?

    • Interestingly, the Italians fielded the Villar Perosa in a similar manner during World War I – on a wooden tray that the user hung from their shoulder or neck. When the Austrians produced their own copies of the Villar Perosa in 1918, they fielded it in the same way. So this method of handling has actually been used in combat, although I can’t say whether it was very effective or not – probably not, otherwise the Italian High Command wouldn’t have commissioned Beretta to turn the Villar Perosa into the Model 1918 SMG.

      • And the fools who thought it was a super murder gun didn’t see the receiver beaten to death by the bolt when used heavily.

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