We just received a small shipment of the Enfield No1 MK3 rifles with Iraqi service markings. These rifles feature the Iraqi “Jeem” mark and were used by Iraqi forces at some point in the past before they arrived in Ethiopia. The Iraqi “Jeem” marking is featured on the top of the receiver and barrel. Some also feature Iraqi stock discs, but not all. Only a limited few available!

These beautiful rifles come straight out of Ethiopia. The condition of the rifles is NRA good to very good. Many of the rifles have their original finish. Some rifles may have a cracked hand guards behind or in front of the rear sight, but not all of them do. The guns do have dents and dings in the stock as can clearly be seen in the pictures and videos. All guns have been tested and are safe to shoot. We have seen rifles as early as 1913 and late as 1943.

We do have a hand select option available for an additional $100.00. We will select the best rifle out of the batch available.

If you have any questions please call us and we will be more than happy to answer any of your questions or concerns.

History taken from Wikipedia.

The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle that served as the main firearm used by the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century. It was the British Army’s standard rifle from its official adoption in 1895 until 1957.[10][11] The WWI versions are often referred to as the “SMLE”, which is short for the common “Short, Magazine, Lee–Enfield” variant.

A redesign of the Lee–Metford (adopted by the British Army in 1888), the Lee–Enfield superseded the earlier Martini–Henry, Martini–Enfield, and Lee–Metford rifles. It featured a ten-round box magazine which was loaded with the .303 British cartridge manually from the top, either one round at a time or by means of five-round chargers. The Lee–Enfield was the standard issue weapon to rifle companies of the British Army and other Commonwealth nations in both the First and Second World Wars (these Commonwealth nations included Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India and South Africa, among others).[12] Although officially replaced in the UK with the L1A1 SLR in 1957, it remained in widespread British service until the early/mid-1960s and the 7.62 mm L42A1 sniper variant remained in service until the 1990s. As a standard-issue infantry rifle, it is still found in service in the armed forces of some Commonwealth nations,[13] notably with the Bangladesh Police, which makes it the second longest-serving military bolt-action rifle still in official service, after the Mosin–Nagant (Mosin-Nagant receivers are used in the Finnish 7.62 Tkiv 85).[14] The Canadian Rangers unit still use Enfield rifles, with plans to replace the weapons sometime in 2017–2018 with the new Sako-designed Colt Canada C19.[15] Total production of all Lee–Enfields is estimated at over 17 million rifles.[8]

The Lee–Enfield takes its name from the designer of the rifle’s bolt system—James Paris Lee—and the factory in which it was designed—the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield.

Design and history

The Lee–Enfield rifle was derived from the earlier Lee–Metford, a mechanically similar black-powder rifle, which combined James Paris Lee’s rear-locking bolt system that had a barrel featuring rifling designed by William Ellis Metford. The Lee action cocked the striker on the closing stroke of the bolt, making the initial opening much faster and easier compared to the “cock on opening” (i.e., the firing pin cocks upon opening the bolt) of the Mauser Gewehr 98 design. The bolt has a relatively short bolt throw and features rear-mounted lugs and the bolt operating handle places the bolt knob just rearwards of the trigger at a favourable ergonomic position close to the operator’s hand. The action features helical locking surfaces (the technical term is interrupted threading). This means that final head space is not achieved until the bolt handle is turned down all the way. The British probably used helical locking lugs to allow for chambering imperfect or dirty ammunition and that the closing cam action is distributed over the entire mating faces of both bolt and receiver lugs. This is one reason the bolt closure feels smooth. The rifle was also equipped with a detachable sheet-steel, 10-round, double-column magazine, a very modern development in its day. Originally, the concept of a detachable magazine was opposed in some British Army circles, as some feared that the private soldier might be likely to lose the magazine during field campaigns. Early models of the Lee–Metford and Lee–Enfield even used a short length of chain to secure the magazine to the rifle.[16] To further facilitate rapid aimed fire the rifle can be cycled by most riflemen without loss of sight picture.

These design features facilitate rapid cycling and fire compared to other bolt-action designs like the Mauser.[11] The Lee bolt-action and 10-round magazine capacity enabled a well-trained rifleman to perform the “mad minute” firing 20 to 30 aimed rounds in 60 seconds, making the Lee–Enfield the fastest military bolt-action rifle of the day. The current world record for aimed bolt-action fire was set in 1914 by a musketry instructor in the British Army—Sergeant Instructor Snoxall—who placed 38 rounds into a 12-inch-wide (300 mm) target at 300 yards (270 m) in one minute.[17] Some straight-pull bolt-action rifles were thought faster, but lacked the simplicity, reliability, and generous magazine capacity of the Lee–Enfield. Several First World War accounts tell of British troops repelling German attackers who subsequently reported that they had encountered machine guns, when in fact it was simply a group of well-trained riflemen armed with SMLE Mk III rifles.[18][19]

Standard Mk VII .303-inch cartridge for Lee–Enfield rifle

The Lee–Enfield was adapted to fire the .303 British service cartridge, a rimmed, high-powered rifle round. Experiments with smokeless powder in the existing Lee–Metford cartridge seemed at first to be a simple upgrade, but the greater heat and pressure generated by the new smokeless powder wore away the shallow, rounded, Metford rifling after approximately 6000 rounds.[10] Replacing this with a new square-shaped rifling system designed at the Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) Enfield solved the problem, and the Lee–Enfield was born.[10]

Short Magazine Lee–Enfield Mk I

A shorter and lighter version of the original MLE—the Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee–Enfield or SMLE (sometimes spoken as “Smelly”, rather than S, M, L, E)[14]—was introduced on 1 January 1904. The barrel was now halfway in length between the original long rifle and the carbine, at 25.2 inches (640 mm).[23] The SMLE’s visual trademark was its blunt nose, with only the bayonet boss protruding a small fraction of an inch beyond the nosecap, being modelled on the Swedish Model 1894 Cavalry Carbine. The new rifle also incorporated a charger loading system,[24] another innovation borrowed from the Mauser rifle and is notably different from the fixed “bridge” that later became the standard, being a charger clip (stripper clip) guide on the face of the bolt head.[25] The shorter length was controversial at the time; many Rifle Association members and gunsmiths were concerned that the shorter barrel would not be as accurate as the longer MLE barrels, that the recoil would be much greater and the sighting radius would be too short.[26]