Milsurp After Hours

As many of you know, fellow-Canadian Jay Curragh has a great Lee-Enfield website - chock full of very useful information - to which I'm proud to have made a few small contributions ...

http://enfieldrifles.profusehost.net/

My latest contribution, and most ambitious to date, is the "Parker's Rifle Shot's Registry" which Jay has made available online in its entirety. Here's the cover:

http://members.memlane.com/gromboug/prkrcov2.jpg[/pic]

This is the type of instructional manual, combined with a shooting log, in common use by shooters during the real heyday of military-style target rifle competitions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This particular edition (27th annual) is apparently from 1913, as it contains the U.K. NRA sight regulations for that year. Although the SMLE had been the British standard military-issue rifle for a decade, the rifle embossed on the cover (and illustrated with full parts diagram inside) is the "Rifle, Magazine, Lee-Enfield MarkI*" - i.e. the last of the "Long Lees". I thought this reference should be available for perusal and enjoyment of Enfield fans everywhere, and Jay very kindly co-operated through his website.

The link to that particular section of Jay's website (warning: large image files!) -

http://enfieldrifles.profusehost.net/pa.htm

When I came across this little gem of a book at a gun show last year, I had to have it! All the more so because it was a perfect accessory for my beautiful near-mint commercial LSA MLE MkI*, configured as a target rifle, with the name of its Canadian owner engraved on the buttplate (... yeah, you're right ... all this has merely been a sneaky lead-in to yet another posting of images of this gorgeous rifle ... [;)] ) -

http://members.memlane.com/gromboug/mle_01.jpg[/pic]

http://members.memlane.com/gromboug/mle_02.jpg[/pic]

http://members.memlane.com/gromboug/mle_03.jpg[/pic]

http://members.memlane.com/gromboug/mle02c.jpg" widty=650>

Thanks for sharing the book with us, Grant.

It makes for very interesting reading evoking memories of an age when target shooting was considered to be a respectable sport in the UK.

If I owned such a beautiful Long Lee I think I'd be showing off too.

By the way, did I ever mention my 1895 ex Royal Scots Grays Lee Metford Cavalry Carbine..................?

Brian

Is your Long Lee a bit of a "dog" than Brian?

Thanks for the link Grant.

Jay's is a good site, we have a link to it in the "Further Reading" forum.

I have a later version of that register that I still use.

The Long Lee's are for me the classiest of Enfields, they are a real rifle mans rifle.

Those Volunteers were obviously loved to have been handed down in such excellent condition.

In my collection I have a Metford barrelled Lee Enfield MK 1 by LSA, obviously its owner chose to have the Metford barrel fitted to the Enfield action as he must have thought that they were better.

I should get my camera out and start an exclusive Long Lee thread where these ladies can be shown at their best to the discerning shooter.

I'm actually doing a bit of stiring Adam to try and get the "Strangely Brown versus Brian the Brit Long Lee Grudge Match" up and running again.

If you like Brian we could host it here: http://www.hbsa.fsnet.co.uk/st_geo_05.pdf

And shoot it at 300 yards in match 1.

I will even give a silver plated tankard as first prize.

I do think that you lads are in need of a rematch, the HBSA match would give the scoring a high degree of robustness and keep any excuses to the minimum.



I say go to it, with a will gentlemen.

We would look forward to the results here, mind you the way you've been shooting Mick I'd have second thoughts about going up against you.

However Brian is no doubt a better man than I and he'll rise nobly to your challenge.

BTW Grant,

can I welcome you this forum and hope that we see you around more often.

Thanks for the welcome! Excellent site here - which I hope to visit regularly.

Actually, I believe I was registered here before, but during a computer upgrade lost some log-in info for a few places, and then was unable to re-register due to a sort of "Catch 22" situation ( i.e. "that user name is already in use/that e-mail address does not match the one in our records for that username", or something like that.) Anyway, decided to give it another try and, for whatever reason, was successful this time!

Welcome back Grant, and thanks for the link

Joe

Mick n Brian, you lads definitely need a rematch

Joe

dromia wrote:... I should get my camera out and start an exclusive Long Lee thread where these
ladies can be shown at their best to the discerning shooter.

I must agree - the "Long Lees" are by far the most "beautiful" of the British military Lees.

Once the weather improves a bit around here, so that I can get outside for some more decent

"available light photos" (the best kind in my view), I really must get some more pictures of this rifle

(and others, for that matter.) Don't know if you took note of the "incorrect" Pattern 1903 bandolier

in the above photo - entirely inappropriate with a non-charger loading rifle such as this, of course.

Since then, I have acquired one of the nice reproduction Mounted Infantry bandoliers (with flap-covered

individual loops for .303 cartidges) which is certainly more appropriate for a photo composition of this

rifle .....