Today’s Ethiopian Oddity is a rifle that began its like as an early Lee Enfield MkI made by London Small Arms. It has the original buttstock, early style safety, volley sights, and magazine cutoff from that configuration. However, at some point it appears to have been reworked by an Ethiopian armorer. The barrel was replaced with one of SMLE length (longer than an early Lee Enfield carbine but shorter than a Long Lee rifle). The bayonet lug is completely non-functional, and SMLE-style handguard was fitted, and a unique front sight protector added. Neat!
Book review
A Book For Aspiring Firearms Designers
Regular readers may recall that about a year ago I wrote a review of Firearms Anatomy I: The Thompson M1A1 Submachine Gun by David Findlay. It was a very neat book covering the Thompson from […]
Revolver
.38 ACP Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver
The rarest variation of the Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver is the .38 ACP model. Only 341 of these were made by Webley, in an attempt to compete with the new semiautomatic pistols appearing on the market […]
Bolt Action Rifles
The First SMLE Trials Rifles: Lessons From the Boer War
In the aftermath of the Boer War, the British military needed to address critical issues of practical marksmanship with its troops. The Long Lee rifles it had deployed to South Africa suffered significant problems in […]
A gunsmithing problem borne of resource-limitations. I suppose the original barrel was burnt out by extensive use. Perhaps the original stock was smashed to pieces from being used to bludgeon idiots too much. I could be wrong.
The original barrel was most probably cleaned out and not shot out I bet. Firearms get cleaned too often and shot too rarely in the military.
Its a commercially made rifle by London Small arms Co as opposed to being made for a British military contract. Quite a rare rifle.