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!
Video
Hall’s Patent Clock Gun: A Shot Every Hour, On The Hour
Patented by one John Hall of Cumberland, England in 1902, this is a device intended to scare birds out of a field at regular intervals. It has twelve chambers for 12-gauge pinfire shotgun shells, which […]
Artillery
Quick Look at a 37mm Maxim “Pompom” Automatic Cannon
This Vickers, Sons & Maxim 37mm MkIII “Pompom” is on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. The MkIII pattern is quite scarce, with less than one hundred ever made. It is built around […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Charger-Loading Lee Enfields: The CLLE MkI* and MkII
In our continuing series on the development of the British Lee Enfield rifles, we are looking at the CLLE conversions today. In 1907 the British adopted a new universal short rifle (the SMLE) that used […]
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.