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!
Heavy MGs
Vickers for Interwar Tanks: The Class C/T Machine Gun
The Vickers company developed several versions of the Vickers machine gun for aircraft use during the 1920s and 1930s, but they also worked on armored vehicle versions of the gun in the 1930s. Between 1930 […]
Bolt Action Rifles
British 1942 Prototype Simplified…Enfield?
This rifle sold for $5,750 at Rock Island on December 1, 2018. In 1942, the British government instituted a development program to design a new simplified rifle to replace the No4 MkI Lee Enfield. The […]
Accessories
Very Rare and Mostly Pointless: the Bren Fixed Line Sight
The very early production MkI Bren light machine guns were made with two dovetail brackets on the left side of the receiver. The rear one was for the standard rear sight, and the front one […]
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.