[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: ozisbjorn@yahoo.com.au
Date: 6/17/2001
Time: 11:03:44 AM
Remote Name: 203.30.34.254
To Whom It May Concern
I have recently placed my 83 year old father into permanent care. As part of the dismal process of closing down his house, I have had the licenses for his 3 old rifles transferred to myself. I have just taken them to a Bunbury gunsmith, Jack McCormack, for restoration. He tells me that the .303 is not a Lee-Enfield, as it's described on the gun license, but a Lee-Metford. I know very little about firearms, but it has an 8 round magazine, etc.
Jack is attending to the rifle now, but he suggested to me that I try to find one of the double-edged bayonets which fitted the Lee-Metford.
Do you know where I can find one?
I don't really know where the rifle came from. My father has dementia now, and wouldn't be able to say. It may have come from SA with my grandfather (who had a cousin in the Light Horse) or my father may have bought it when he worked on Minilya Station in the Gascoyne district of WA during the 1940's.
I was thrilled to find that this rifle was of Boer War vintage, because my great grandmother's brother, on my mother's side, was Lt Col Bell, who won WA's first Victoria Cross at Brakpaan in 1901.
Hoping someone can help me with the bayonet Ian Osborne