Hey guys, just wanted to show my latest acquisition. I lucked into this S&W Model 1940 Light Rifle and ended up getting it for $4k flat. Appears to be a Mark I. Not a whole lot of info out there on these, but I know they're pretty rare and very neat historically. What do you guys think?














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Quite nice! Very rare if I recall correctly.
Congratulations.

Very cool historical weapon. I believe they made a run of these for the British who returned them in exchange for a bunch of Victory Models either before or during the war. I think the Brits were gonna sue S&W, IIRC.

They are rare and almost bankrupted S&W. Where did you find one?

Interesting weapon.

A good read:

Smith & Wesson Model 1940 Light Rifle - Wikipedia

Do you plan on shooting it at all? The receiver can crack with extended firing of sub gun ammo, hence the warning sticker, but the guns are safe with limited standard pressure loads.

Here is my display along with Ernie Rice. We displayed the Light Rifle at a national show. We had a number of experimental parts from the collection of Roy Jinks. along with paper items from my collection. We were awarded Judges Choice. All the experimental parts were later givem to Ernie by Mr. Jinks.

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Don Mundell

Very cool!! I recall reading a little blurb about these as a teenager, in one of those ubiquitous"World Small Arms" or something like that that all of the chain bookstores seem to carry. Had a lovely full color photo as I recall.

Historically the problem was this: In 1940 S&W made fine handguns. The Brits we're at war and needed a close quarters weapon for their Commandos in 9mm cal., so they paid S&W approx. a million dollars to design such a weapon ( which saved S&W from bankruptcy ). S&W came up with the Model 1940, made by S&Ws staff of fine fitters & polishers in cal .9mm. What was lost in translation was that 9mm to the Brits meant their high pressure 9mm military round, not the American low pressure version of the 9mm round that S&W designed the gun to fire, so failures soon appeared from metal stresses, etc. The Brits wanted their money back, but S&W didn't have it, so a "refund" was negotiated that required S&W to supply handguns to pay off the refund. In the 1970s, S&W found around 170, or so, of these guns in their "attic" and Roy Jinks persuaded the factory to sell them to S&WCA Members, rather than junking them. The guns were mostly marked with a plaque on the stock saying they were not safe to fire, due liability concerns. I have fired my Mark 11( Mark 11s were a modification of the Mark 1s, to attempt to solve some problems) many times , with no problems. The guns are classed as C&Rs by the ATF. The Label "Light Rifle" was applied by the Brits as the 9mm cal. was a "Light" caliber in their military language. If you have ever handled one of these, the first thing you notice is they are very heavy - far from light, but beautiful examples of gun making by the same employees that were making Registered Magnums and they didn't drop their standards when the Model 1940s came along. Ed.

I wrote an article on the S&W Light Rifle which appeared in the January, 2016 issue of Dillon's Blue Press catalog/magazine. You might call Dillon Precision at 1-800-223-4570 to see if they could nail down a copy of that issue to send you.

Here's a couple pictures of the one I wrote about.



John

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Nice display.
I have some parts for the light rifle if anyone is looking pm for details.
Michael