Do you collect any aviation/militaria memorabilia?

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

My baby is a inter-war 1924 SMLE No1 Mk3* made in Lithgow in Australia. It has matching serial for bolt, butt, forestock and nose cap. My magazine does not have a serial on it so I don't know if it's original or not.

It's butt stock has been stamped HV to designate it is sighted for the High Velocity .303 MKVII rounds (During WWI Australia was still producing rifle that used the MKVI which fired a slower heavyer round).

It's been stamped with a '3' which has been over struck with a '4'. The designates the Australian Military District that it was issued to. '3' Being Victoria and '4' Being South Australia.

I don't know anything about the Rifles individual history but the South Australian 2/27th Infantry Battalion fought along side my Dads 2/16th Inf Btn (originally Western Australian) that saw action in Syria and Lebanon, the Kokoda Track campaign, the battle of Buna-Gona, Ramu Valley and the Borneo campaign (as far as I remember Dad missed out on Buna-Gona and the Ramu Valley due to injuries on the Kokoda campaign).

The rifle in good working order though has a couple of what looks like burn marks on the wood (as well as a lot of handling marks). Rifling is still bright though I wouldn't call it pristine. The gun still shoots well though I have been using mild reloads though it.

The Bayonet is made by Enfield and is also stamped '24 which sort of matches the gun.

I've picked up the oiler and pull throughs that goes in the trapdoor in the butt and enough stripper clips for a day at the range ( EBay is a bad thing!)!

Cheers!

That's nice indeed! I have two, one with a corroded breech chamber which will be probably made inert, another is an SMLE MkIII* with a peculiarity I didn't realise until after I bought it: I was cleaning them together and noticed the one of the buttstocks was a couple of inches shorter than the other!

I made a quick query and apparently my rifle (they're both dated 1918 ) was one specifically made for Bantam Battalions, which enlisted shorter men, and is definitely rarer than the average SMLE

Mine is too an all matching numbers model, and AFAIK magazines didn't come with a serial number.

I miss a good bayo and oiler for it though, might have to get me one at some point! The SMLE looks SO good with the bayo on!