Lee Enfield .303 1898 Royal Irish Constabulary Carbine

[varifleman]

Here for your perusal is my Lee-Enfield .303 RIC 1898 carbine serial number 6648 with bayonet; RIC inventory number 4303 with acceptance date 6-04. Bore/rifling rates 8/10 so it should be quite accurate; can't wait to take it to the shooting range!
10,000 RIC carbines were converted from obsolete British military Lee Enfield and Lee Metford carbines in 1903 and 1904. Where the British carbines had full-length stocks, the RIC wanted to be able to mount bayonets (specifically, 1888 pattern Metford bayonets). To accommodate this, the carbines were modified with a sleeve to increase the muzzle to the proper diameter and a spliced wood section at the end of the stock to allow a bayonet lug nose cap – which had to be mounted lower than the carbine stock would normally fit.
The Enfield and Metford carbines had been deemed obsolete after the Boer War, when the British army standardized on the new short rifle (the SMLE) to replace both long rifles and carbines. The SMLE included many other changes from the carbine pattern guns, which had different safeties, dust covers on the bolts, 6-round magazines, no stripped clip guides, and sights similar to the earlier Martini-Henry pattern rifles.

The Enfield and Metford carbines had been deemed obsolete after the Boer War, when the British army standardized on the new short rifle (the SMLE) to replace both long rifles and carbines. The SMLE included many other changes from the carbine pattern guns, which had different safeties, dust covers on the bolts, 6-round magazines, no stripped clip guides, and sights similar to the earlier Martini-Henry pattern rifles (Forgotten Weapons).

[Kilian]

What I always enjoy on British guns and bayonets of that late Victorian period is the wealth of stamps and markings that gives us an insight in its life over more than one century. This one has loads of it. It received a proofmark at birth and was re-proved in Birmingham, probably somewhere in the 1960’s or early 70’s, I can’t exactly make out the date stamp for that. Possibly prior to export to the US, hence the England stamp.