I've wanted one of these for years. Brother in law has one and it is just fun, fun, fun to shoot. Got an email from SARCO; they have some for sale for $595...wow, didn't know they were worth that much. May have to part with my M1 carbine.

Yep, they've been fetching real money at estate auctions and on BrokeGunner just lately. When I first started collecting them nice ones ran $250 and the unissued mummy wrapped pieces went for $450-500. Those days are long gone.

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Release the Kraken

I can remember prior to the FFA of 1968 you could buy a 1917 Enfield from the DCM for 7.00, and for a dollar more you could get a special selection. Oh, and that was delivered to your front door.

The one i have now cost 135.00, and I put new surplus stocks on it 40 years ago and I would not let it go south of 1200.00

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Pete
I ain't no fortunate son

Their prices have skyrocketed since the 90’s. Supply (Has dried up) and demand.

^ This, but sometimes you get lucky on the resale market.

WWII Unicorn rifle

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Release the Kraken

Classic Firearms also has some. Worth every penny, IMHO. Some of the most enjoyably reloading I've done was working up accuracy loads for #4MK2 and a P14.
They aren't selling for as high in my area. I see very good examples in private offerings for under $500 and under.

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" I don't recall, senator."

Don't get rid of the carbine whatever you do! Enfields are much more common and a lot cheaper. Ammo is getting harder and harder to find for them too. Check out Enfield-Rifles.com and you just may find one for sale there.

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Why duck?? It's a 9mm!

As much as I like my No4 MKII, I wouldn't give up a M1 carbine for one, but that's just me.

I bought my Lee Enfield in the early '90's for $99.99. It was unissued and unfired still in the wrap and it took me days to get all the cheese paper (or what ever it was wrapped in) and cosmoline off of it, but it cleaned up nice. I've taken a couple of south Arkansas whitetail deer with it, but still have not fired a full box of 20 through it.

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- Change it back -

Yes they are really up there in price and sparse in availability from just a few years back.
I used to buy and sell lots of them. Keeping some for myself of course.
I was in to the No1 and earlier versions. A couple No4 and 5's came and went.
Most of the No1's are gone too.

I used to scour the gunshows looking at the vertical racks of guns for sale specificly looking for the No1 SMLE nosecap. Lots of them around and at great prices. Not anymore. Once in a while you get lucky.
Can't believe what I paid for some of those with Volley sights, cut-off and windage adj rear bbl sights,,less than $100.,,and what they would sell for now.

Great rifles,,fun shooters and easy to reload for. Just segregate the brass for each rifle and neck size only.

Aaaannnddd they’re gone!

Surplus Enfields dry up faster than 99% rubbing alcohol in the middle of the Kalahari desert!

I paid over $450 for mine a couple of years ago. Mind you, it is a New Zealand marked example that by the state of it was likely at Gallipoli.

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Release the Kraken

You know back in MY DAY, we’d walk uphill both ways to Ye Olde Hardware Store and when we got there, they had pristine M1 Garands stacked up to the rafters for $5 a piece!! New in wrapper Enfields could be traded for. A dozen eggs or a pint of milk got you one of England’s best! Mosin-Nagants and SKS’s could be bought for pennies for a whole truck load, people burned the stocks for firewood and made fences out of the barrels!

Man, them was the days they was!!



-Jay

The Enfield is my favorite rifle, especially the #4Mk2. I’ve accumulated a bunch of them, the most recent addition being a #5Mk1 “Jungle Carbine”. Still, as much as I like my Enfields, I would never part with my M-1 Carbines for one

I got my first Enfield, a #4Mk1, in 1995 for $40. The most I paid for one was $400 for an unissued #4Mk2. My newly acquired #5Mk1 was $299. There are still deals out there if you keep an eye out.

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Wheel guns are real guns.

Did you stickem with the knife?

terry

I bought a .303 in 1958 or 59 at the Advance store for I think $17.00. Considering what I was making then they are cheaper now. It shot good but later on I decided I wanted a Winchester M94 and couldn't afford both. Both have been gone for years. Larry

I had a Mark III* that was sporterized and missing 4" of barrel. I bough a new stock and nose metal and made it look military again. It shot better than any of the mil specs I ever fired. I started loading with a Lee Loader in 303 for that rifle in 1979. IT has been a thrill ever since.

Ivan

I called my oldest son a few months back, to see if the No. 4 in my gun case was his. He checked, his was in the closet where it belonged. So now I'm stuck with this rifle I can't remember where it came from! I remember where the No. 5 and the Citadel Martini came from but not the No.4!

If it's a problem for you, I could probably find it a home if it's a variation or from a factory I don't already have.

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Release the Kraken

I try not to let em get that close.

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- Change it back -

I think I discussed the whole bolt action military rifle market issue on another board in very long detail, that they are cheap and plentiful enough nobody is going to manufacture new ones, yet the supply dwindles with every one lost for any reason or destroyed by sporterizing keeping prices up to the point they aren't cheap fun collectables like they used to be. Having a "WW2 battle rifle collection" in the 1950's was a cheap stunt, nowadays it is big money, with no hope of rescue from new manufacture like the Cowboy shooters enjoy. Sad.

I look at buying a Martini Henry at some point, they are still available in large quantities. I would honestly prefer a brand new, modern gun steel with tight new barrel version, but alas, what are the chances that some of my favorite classic rifles will never be made again? The Cowboy shooters don't appreciate how good they have things! Where is a man to buy a brand new, new gun steel Webley revolver, or a G98, Lee Enfield, 1917, 1903, Arisaka, et al? When you want one for your collection, you only get to hurt an realize how out of price they are for casual collection and shooting, unless you are someone who trades and sells guns for cash for other guns. And a nice, clean, factory new of some of those models for accuracy and other issues would be nice.

Hope all the Lee Enfield shooters and owners appreciate their weapons. All those folks out there who never have shot one are getting to the point they might not be able to hardly afford, or justify the price, of doing so.

my first rifle was a jungle carbine. my dad and uncle picked the best one out of a barrel of them for $32. it is one of the many guns I should have kept

I had NO idea! I've got a few in the safe and don't shoot them as often as I used to, probably not at all in the past year. There's a Pattern 14, an Irish Contract No 4, and at least one No 1 plus a No. 1 in pieces in the garage. Think I'll be putting that back together real soon.

Wow. I guess I ought to check out the prices of my Swede Mausers, Swiss rifles, and remaining Finn Mosins. I could be sitting on a fortune! (Yeah, right!)

Thanks for the heads up....and don't sell the carbine. At least not for a Sarco. I guess I'll be checking that out...curiosity and all that.

Bannerman used Springfield barrels for rebar when they expanded the warehouse in NY.

This is very, very true.

Standard models of the Mosin Nagant are still pretty available, but even then they’ve doubled and almost tripled in price from say 5 years ago. Seems nobody thought a thing about them, there were so many around gun shows had whole racks of them and every shop I went to had at LEAST one or two behind the counter.

Now even the humble Mosin is really drying up. The situation for Mauser and Enfields is much more exacerbated. I agree it is a bit sad.

I do think, though, that in coming decades it isn’t out of the question to see a resurgence of reproductions of the eventually made. You can buy a reproduction Brown Bess musket, Springfield musket, you name it now. Back when those guns fell out of favor, there were piles of them laying about and nobody ever thought they’d be worth a dime yet decades later once attrition kicked in, here we are with the likes of Pedersoli, Uberti, etc. making dozens of repros of them.

History will repeat itself. We’re just now in the period were the WW2 surplus rifles are all dried up, but in decades to come I think it’s totally possible repros will bring them back. Just as there are folks interested in “ancient” blackpowder muzzleloaders these days when all the “cool kids” have AR15s, I’ll imagine in a century or so there will be “living history” re-enactment groups wearing funny looking OCP uniforms and shooting ARs while the cool kids are over in their mech suits with laser beams.

It’s fun to think about at least!!

I think if there is reproductions of old military bolt guns made they will not be in the military calibers. The market will be for 22LR or other sub caliber versions.

The M-1965 Rumanian training 22 has the same sight set up as the service rifle! They were a fantastic deal when I bought 2 @ $66.00 each! Last time I looked a few years ago the were over $200.

Ivan

I bought a couple of .303s in like new condition twenty-five or so years ago. I don't remember the model number, but mine had serial #s fairly close together and were made in the early- to mid-fifties as I recall. Previously, I hadn't known such guns were made that late.

I never had a great interest in British .303s, but they were so cheap (I think a bit over $100.00 each) I ordered my two from a supplier who advertised in SHOTGUN NEWS. Each rifle came with an unused bayonet and metal scabbard for the same.

I don't think I ever fired a jacketed bullet in either rifle, using them solely for cast bullet shooting. These rifles were surprisingly well built but clunky. I quickly lost interest in them, much preferring the '03 and '03-A3 Springfields .30-06s. The Springfields had a better "feel" and seemed lighter, though maybe they just balanced better than the .303s. It was also easier to get good cast bullet accuracy from the Springfields. I sold the .303s and haven't missed them.

Perhaps in combat situations for which the British and American rifles were designed, and using military ammunition, there would be little or no difference in the two guns.

+1. They are cool old rifles, but not cool enough to part with an M1 Carbine IMO.

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Some Might Say.

JayFramer -- I wonder if the Brown Bess and Civil War era muskets were popular with reenactors, hence their good sales?.. I reenacted for over ten years (hence my "Redcoat" name) and had a Pedersoli Brown Bess. (Sold it to a buddy when I moved to WA state and couldn't find active Rev War reenacting scene out here).
And, as the Brown Bess was the gun for War of 1812 (which I believe is pretty popular with reenactors in Canada) and for the Napoleonic Wars, which is pretty popular in Europe, I can see why there would be a fairly robust market for them. Same with Springfield muskets, mostly purchased by reenactors?
I'm not sure there's a lot of hunting or target shooting with the Besses, the primitive hunters use Penn long rifles for their bambi harvesting, and the fur trade types all get Hawkins. Plus there are craftsmen still building all those "antiques" just not for mass sales ala SASS shooters.
As I said earlier, I'll be checking prices for the stuff in the safe. But I can't see parting with any of it. It gives me a physical contact point with history that I can't get with either repros or anything modern. (And yes, I have one black gun in the safe, everyone needs one...but it is S&W's least expensive model and does a fine job for what it I is when I pull it out.) Now, gotta start counting bullets in .303, GP11, and 8mm Mauser.

Well in the late 1950s there was a large Army/Navy store in downtown Albany that had a wide kind of long stairs to the second floor (gun and fishing stuff) They had a rack on one side of the stairs and had a lot of all different war rifles positioned vertically the whole stair length. Not locked at all you could take them off the rack easy.


Enfields including "Jungle", pattern 14s and their American cousin in 30.06. 03 Springfield's CarCanos, all sorts of Mousers, Mi carbines and other battle rifles , do not remember seeing many Garands. Back then a $100 bill could get you 8 rifles.

I was too young (14-16) and my father would not let me waste my money on those clunkers. (his description not mine)

They also had plenty of military handguns including many Lugers and British revolvers in the big glass cabinet if you were lucky enough to have a hard to get New York pistol license.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

One caveat with Lee Enfields is they frequently have wide variations in bore diameter, hence accuracy often takes some work. Thin walled 303 british tends to stretch on firing. Headpsace was adjusted through changing boltheads.

A No4 Mk1 Lee Enfield is not a SMLE, that would be a No1 MkIII , Short Magazine Lee Enfield.

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Life NRA, Life TSRA, C&R FFL