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!
Submachine Guns
A Covert Weapons for Special Operations: the Sten MkII(S)
https://youtu.be/hcmVCb_ZgZA There are a fairly wide variety of silenced Sten guns that were made during World War Two, because many were needed for small Special Operations Executive missions. However, the British Army did also formally […]
Heavy MGs
The First Maxim Machine Gun
I am going to start an intermittent series of posts on the various different types of Maxim machine guns over the next few months – there are a whole slew of them, and I have […]
Forgotten History
In the Footsteps of 45 Commando: 60 Miles Across the Falklands
Want a patch or t-shirt with our adorably heavily armed rockhopper penguin? Both are available from Varusteleka: https://www.varusteleka.com/en/search?q=penguin I was recently joined my friends Les Winner (Polaris Worldwide Logistics) and Jari Laine (Varusteleka) for an […]
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.