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!
Prototype
SA80 History: L22A2 and Experimental L85 Carbines
Armament Research Services (ARES) is a specialist technical intelligence consultancy, offering expertise and analysis to a range of government and non-government entities in the arms and munitions field. For detailed photos of the guns in […]
Manuals
EM-2 Rifle Manual
I recently got an email from a reader who had scanned the EM-2 manual section from the back of Thomas Dugelby’s EM2 Concept and Design and sent it to me. I thanked him (although I […]
Slow motion
ZX-7 American Sterling at the Range
Today we are taking the ZX-7 (essentially a Sterling SMG in .45 ACP) out to the range. It runs rather faster than I initially expected, but isn’t too hard to handle…
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.