Back in the gun business

[SA1911a1]

It has been a dry spell, but today I hit the gun show in LA (Lower Alabama) and found two that I could afford and that struck my fancy. The First is a common 1955 Chinese T-53. This rifle had been spray painted black after it had been spray painted forest green. Thank goodness Bubba did not remove the storage grease so the paint came off the metal fine, the stock is going to take a little elbow grease, I will show it when it is feeling better. $130.00 OTD, so it is worth a little work.

The second is a Lee-Enfield No. 1. Mark III, Lithgow with Australian markings. This rifle is all matching including the stock, the stock is in nice shape. It is very impregnated with grease and it leaked all over the place sitting in the car in the sun. I plan to sweat some more out of it and it should be a beaut! I hope that someone will recognize the hang tag that was on the rifle. Samco maybe? Hopefully someone can also give me an idea of current value; I couldn't figure out anything from Gunbroker. (I think I did well, but I am clueless on current Enfield pricing)

I am going to air it out tomorrow and see if it shoots around corners.

[steelbuttplate]

One's like that are going for around $600

[ffuries]

Nice finds Steve. I'm jealous, my money is pretty much tied into house repairs. I like the Lee-Enfield, don't have one yet and sure an hell wouldn't pass it up.

If you're so bored in your retirement, you can always come over for a gun cleaning party. 12 are done, only 28 more to break completely down, inspect, clean, oil and reassemble.

[shoto2758]

I've got a 41..nice rifles with a ton of markings on them.

[SA1911a1]

One's like that are going for around $600

That is good to hear. I bought at $300.00, private sale, no tax

[SA1911a1]

Nice finds Steve. I'm jealous, my money is pretty much tied into house repairs. I like the Lee-Enfield, don't have one yet and sure an hell wouldn't pass it up.

If you're so bored in your retirement, you can always come over for a gun cleaning party. 12 are done, only 28 more to break completely down, inspect, clean, oil and reassemble.

Mike, the Dothan show is continuing downhill. Only about a third of the vendors were selling guns. The two I bought came from an old phart like me selling his collection.

I ain't bored yet!

[ffuries]

Nice finds Steve. I'm jealous, my money is pretty much tied into house repairs. I like the Lee-Enfield, don't have one yet and sure an hell wouldn't pass it up.

If you're so bored in your retirement, you can always come over for a gun cleaning party. 12 are done, only 28 more to break completely down, inspect, clean, oil and reassemble.

Mike, the Dothan show is continuing downhill. Only about a third of the vendors were selling guns. The two I bought came from an old phart like me selling his collection.

I ain't bored yet!

Guess I'll spend another day or two or three, elbow deep in oil and gun parts again starting tomorrow, and I'll be talking to myself or the dogs again.......

[Junk Yard Dog]

Make sure that type 53 has an import marking on it. Some VC rifles were painted black, and then left with problem bolts so they would blow up when GI joe found them and fired it.

[bunkysdad]

[emoji848] oh dang we wouldn't want that to happen. A booby trap rifle from the VC? What would be the odds?

[SA1911a1]

It is a Navy Arms import. Tiny import mark on the rear sight base.

[Junk Yard Dog]

[emoji848] oh dang we wouldn't want that to happen. A booby trap rifle from the VC? What would be the odds?

Every side in all modern wars did this sort of shit. How much ammo did the CIA fill with C-4 and stick back in hidden caches.

[SA1911a1]

As promised, the photos of the T-53. It was slathered in black on green spray paint. Of course the metal cleaned up with no ill effects, and I tried to limit any further damage to the wood, but you can't undo 100% of Bubba's work. It is a shame because the stock was in good shape compared to most T-53s. I haven't shot it yet, but the bore has decent rifling and a good crown so it should be fine.

[SA1911a1]

After I bought the SMLE, I went online to read as much about the species until the book that I ordered arrives. I am laying in bed reading my tablet and the issue with the Lithgow rifles that kept coming up over and over was that there were a lot of humped rifles, built from parts, that were imported by one of Jim's big city neighbors. (Jovino) I crawled out of bed, got my flashlight and sure enough, the rifle was import marked J. J. Ny Ny. I thought that I had bought a real stinker.

The defining characteristic of the humped rifles was that the stocks would not have copper reinforcement bumpers inside the stock. The next morning I tore the rifle down and, thank goodness, the support plates were in place. The rifle is legit. It seems as if the importer bought the entire Australian inventory of SMLEs and all of the spare parts. He sold off the rifles and then started selling rifles made from parts with new made stocks and passing them off as "unissued" rifles. It sounded like Mitchell's Mausers.

I learned a couple of things taking the rifle down. First of all, you need a giant screwdriver collection to cover all of the different screws that hold the rifle together. What were the Brits thinking? Secondly, when they mothballed this gun, they greased the dickens out of it. The inside and the stock were sloppy with preservative. You can see some damage to the finish of the wood near the muzzle. An Enfield collector told me that the rifle probably had yellow paint on the wood, designating it as a "cadet rifle." He said that the finish damage was from some yahoo soaking that part of the rifle in a solvent to remove the yellow paint.....Apparently a common "fix."

After cleaning the metal, I wrapped the stock tightly with paper towels and did the black garbage bag on the dash of the truck routine. It sweated a ton of oils out of the wood. I wiped it down while it was still warm and it improved the appearance a great deal.

[RazorBurn]

One's like that are going for around $600

$350 to $400 all day long in my neck of the woods on Enfields. The last two I picked up were 300 bucks.

That is good to hear. I bought at $300.00, private sale, no tax

You did well IMHO. That's a damn nice looking Enfield.

[SA1911a1]

One's like that are going for around $600

$350 to $400 all day long in my neck of the woods on Enfields. The last two I picked up were 300 bucks.

That is good to hear. I bought at $300.00, private sale, no tax

You did well IMHO. That's a damn nice looking Enfield.

Thank you, thank you very much!

How about everybody's take on the bore. I have been brushing everything including desert sand and olive oil from the bore. This is probably as good as it will get before I shoot it the rest of the way clean. I believe the rest of that roughness mid way is carbon fouling that the brush skipped over. You think she will spin a bullet?

[Longcolt44]

Would it spin a bullet?? It would spin it's little butt off in there.

[steelbuttplate]

That will spin one right thru 1/2 inch steel.

[SA1911a1]

I need the camera to see the condition of the bore, even with a bore light, so I ran a bore snake through the rifle and took this photo. I thought, "Oh crap!" It looked like corrosion to me.

[SA1911a1]

Deleted; double post.

[Junk Yard Dog]

I remember these well, I bought three of them for a hundred bucks in the early 90's, then later bought the trainer for not much more. The ones I got were some of the nicest SMLE's I have seen. High level of fit and finish, but then nobody was bombing the Lithgow facilities. The market was flooded with every sort of SMLE for a brief time, I took advantage of that, not to the extent I later did with the Mosins, but I still had fun.