mawkie
C&R Whisperer
I've got a rather large collection of Enfield rifles, a fact that has been front and center recently as I've been updating my inventory list for insurance. One item that has eluded me for many years is a decent example of a BSA SMLE No1 MKIII* "Dispersal" rifle. The last example I had a shot at was back in 2008 at a local auction. But bidding was aggressive and I dropped out when it went above my personal limit. Had no clue that it would take another 7 years to find one!
The name Dispersal comes from the action that BSA took in 1940 when their Small Heath SMLE factory was taken out of operation from numerous Luftwaffe bombing raids. BSA moved machinery and also subcontracted to many small manufacturers throughout England, in essence "dispersing" the production to make it more difficult for the Germans to interrupt.
The most obvious sign that a SMLE is a BSA dispersal rifle is the intentional omission of "SA Co" from the "BSA Co" mark on the buttsocket. So all you see is a "B" mark. Just as the Germans used manuf. codes in an attempt to shield manufacturing information from their enemies the British stopped identifying BSA as the manufacturer of these SMLEs.
I've got a 1940 dated L series BSA SMLE that was produced using commercial parts just before Small Heath was bombed so you can see the difference in markings. This one is a MKIII so it has the cutoff that was deleted from the M series MKIII* dispersal that I acquired.
Both rifles were 90's Century imports, probably from Greece. The Dispersal came from today's Redding Auction and was soaked in grease, never cleaned since it went into storage.
The name Dispersal comes from the action that BSA took in 1940 when their Small Heath SMLE factory was taken out of operation from numerous Luftwaffe bombing raids. BSA moved machinery and also subcontracted to many small manufacturers throughout England, in essence "dispersing" the production to make it more difficult for the Germans to interrupt.
The most obvious sign that a SMLE is a BSA dispersal rifle is the intentional omission of "SA Co" from the "BSA Co" mark on the buttsocket. So all you see is a "B" mark. Just as the Germans used manuf. codes in an attempt to shield manufacturing information from their enemies the British stopped identifying BSA as the manufacturer of these SMLEs.
I've got a 1940 dated L series BSA SMLE that was produced using commercial parts just before Small Heath was bombed so you can see the difference in markings. This one is a MKIII so it has the cutoff that was deleted from the M series MKIII* dispersal that I acquired.
Both rifles were 90's Century imports, probably from Greece. The Dispersal came from today's Redding Auction and was soaked in grease, never cleaned since it went into storage.
