My Enfield holy grail.......

[Demonic69]

Where the heck did you get the l98 from?
There is a massive market for them I reckon but there are next to none around, even though the MOD got rid of loads

I don't read my own signature!

[Stuck]

More to the point where did you get to fire the Bren on full auto?!

[David TS]

Where the heck did you get the l98 from?
There is a massive market for them I reckon but there are next to none around, even though the MOD got rid of loads

I don't read my own signature!

I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and have had my ear to the ground for one for getting on for three years!

Originally it was thought that when the Cadet rifles were changed from A1 to A2 spec they would convert the existing ones, but apparently they issued A2's from store and the A1's then went into store.

I believe mine is one of 20 or 30 that ROF Enfield built in single shot form, same as a Cadet rifle, and they got exported to Canada in around 1988, but then the law in Canada changed and a handful came back to the UK.

[David TS]

More to the point where did you get to fire the Bren on full auto?!

I'm not sure I should say!

It wasn't a million miles from Heathrow though .

[Hutch]

Where the heck did you get the l98 from?
There is a massive market for them I reckon but there are next to none around, even though the MOD got rid of loads

I don't read my own signature!

I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and have had my ear to the ground for one for getting on for three years!

Originally it was thought that when the Cadet rifles were changed from A1 to A2 spec they would convert the existing ones, but apparently they issued A2's from store and the A1's then went into store.

I believe mine is one of 20 or 30 that ROF Enfield built in single shot form, same as a Cadet rifle, and they got exported to Canada in around 1988, but then the law in Canada changed and a handful came back to the UK.

As much as I love the enfields I'm afraid I'm going to burst your bubble.
What you have bought is one of about half a dozen rifles built from cutting the lower off a deact and welding it back up. The serial numbers should all start UE xxxxxxx and be laser etched, I can bet yours is stamped into the lower.

This is another one I've come across, you can see the weld/cut


This is mine, a genuine one

[Sandgroper]

How on Earth can you tell from the original pictures? Looks like I need new glasses! :cool2:

[Hutch]

Cos I've come across a few before so I know what I was looking for

But I waited to find a genuine one

[David TS]

Hutch

You can't use PM until you've got 15 posts, can you email me an email address I can contact you on?

Mine is david.standing@bmsgroup.com

Ta

[David TS]

Hutch

I have had an extensive email and photo exchange with a friend this afternoon, and he used some strong words which out of respect to him I shan't repeat!

The friend happens to be Captain Peter Laidler, REME (Rtd), ex of the SASC Warminster.

What Peter doesn't know about late Enfields isn't worth knowing, and he was one of the major technical contributors to Steve Raw's authoritative book on the SA80 and derivatives, "The Last Enfield - SA80 - The Reluctant Rifle".

Peter confirms the rifles that went to Canada were modified the same as mine. He has spoken to another owner whose L98 is seven serial numbers away from mine, and his is modified the same as mine. He was also involved in sending one to NZ some while back (also seven serial numbers from mine, in the opposite direction), and that was also modified the same way.

The definitive answer to this is on page 213 of Steve Raw's book, in a picture of the Enfield Competition Rifle, basically an LSW with the gas block blanked off, single shot, fitted with a modified Cadet cocking assembly. You can see clearly from the photo that this rifle is also modified exactly the same as mine and the other two mentioned above.......and Peter confirms this rifle was obtained new, directly from the ROF Enfield factory modified in this way, which concretes the provenance of these modifications.

Peter confirms not only is mine authentic, but is a very early and original rifle.

As for being a cut and shut reactivated deact? Can't print Peter's comments on that either .

There were a number of rifles originally sold into the UK (I suspect yours is 1986 or 1987, and they were perfectly legal to be sold at that time as they were pre Hungerford (1987) and pre Firearms Amendment Act 1988, which is of course what followed the Hungerford massacre and banned semi auto rifles in the UK). Whilst the L98 was and is always Section 1 and always UK legal, the immense political uproar after Hungerford not only killed off sales of semi auto SA80's in the UK (Pat Walker famously being one trade seller) by way of the '88 Act, but the UK market for the S1 legal L98 was effectively killed off politically too as it looked for all intents and purposes the same as the banned SA80 semi auto, and it was made by a government owned factory, which is why ROF Enfield looked to Canada for commercial sales.

Just because yours doesn't look like mine, that doesn't make mine unoriginal. It was just produced that way for a different market because that is how Canadian firearms law at the time dictated it.

[David TS]

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