Thread: Secret stash of old Enfield's

https://arsof-history.org/articles/p...resistance.pdf

Theres not a lot of defined stores allocation info, which is a little surprising because you can just about pull up turd tonnages recovered out of every base in any area you care to looks at. That link above has the most detail about packing and delivery systems and methodology. While i'm not trying to suggest the main battle rifles weren't supplied they were definitely not the preferred arm. Not conceable enough, and not really enough firepower for the role.

The majority of published info glosses over the supply side of the operation, and those with specfic info tend to support a similar line to the article above. I have a few books here with sections that refer to supply of weapons chambered in locally available cartridges (which would lead to the assumption of captured ammo) but thats pretty hard to verify anywhere...

Really interesting subject, one of the questions that comes up from it is most military armouries catalouge and seal stored weapons in grease and wrap with all identifying marks recorded outside the package. Those No4's obviously didn't get the military armoury treatment. A lot of Lee Enfields supplied ex-Aussie and sold off via the NZ range shooting groups ended up in a similar state, apparently the bolts were modified to tighten headspace to the preferred local ammo and the local order of business was take the numbered 'gauged' bolt out of the rifle, chuck it in a bucket and select another by trial and error method to pick one that had good bolt lug engagement and tight headspacing. I got that from one of the club armourer's that was doing that as part of the tuning service to convert military rifles into target shooting specials - seems strange to me but that's what they did and probably why so many LE's in NZ have mismatched bolts.