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Recently acquired a no 1 mk3 enfield, I know that the Australian furniture normally has SLAZ 43 stamped on it (made by Slazenger) but this one is stamped "Australia"  on the underside of the buttstock waist,any comments, never seen this before.

Thanks

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Slazenger only made wood rifle furniture during and after WW2, hence Slaz43 for 1943. In WW1 wood furniture was made at SAF Lithgow, initially in walnut imported from UK then latter in Queensland Maple and latter in coachwood.

 

Many bayonets imported into the USA after WW2, sourced from Australia have "AUSTRALIA" stamped on the wood grip to denote the country of origin. This was done in USA for US customs. I expect the stamp on your rifle stock was done at the same time for the same reason.

Cheers

Ross

 

PS the Slazenger factory was in Alexandria in Sydney and up until the 1990s they had a wall painted black inside the offices, with white outlines of all the different military equipment made during WW2 and the quantity made. They also made the wood stocks and carry handles for the L1A1 SLRs. There were samples in a display case.

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The 1968 US National Firearms Act required imported weapons to have the country of origin stamped on them in a particular format (with source, calibre and importer)

Prior to that there had been movement in that direction as Ross describes.  Many Enfields imported in this period have ENGLAND stamped on them also (I believe in both cases it was done by exporters to satisfy US requirements rather than in the US but it may have been done by importers) Bayonet grips seems to also have been stamped (even when unattached/unissued I have seen a box of them so marked) I suspect this was an exporter/importer attempting to make sure they covered!

 

This marking is a bone of some contention in collecting fields as some refuse to recognize the early marks as "import stamps" and propose all sorts of alternative explanations, however as far as I am concerned it is clear that these were done to satisfy import/export requirements.

 

Modern firearms imports have a much larger "dot matrix" banner stamp which is far more obvious than earlier stamps.

 

Chris

 

Edited by 4thGordons
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Thanks Chris,

I had not seen the ENGLAND stamps but it makes sense.

 

As a commercial market activity it is near impossible to determine when the stamping was done, in the country of export, or in bond store in the country of import prior to customs clearance.  The practice here in Oz is that any work on firearms is usually done in the bond here prior to customs clearance. Similarly I believe that this is the practice in the UK, that the very large quantities of former Australian war reserves weapons sent to the UK about 1989 were modified (mainly demilling) in the UK in bond prior to release into the country.

 

In either case, these markings are after the weapon has left military service and are only made to meet civil requirements.

 

I find the history of US weapon regulation for import/export is confusing. The 1968 act was a huge change but there have been a number of others. Also other laws regarding trade embargos flow over the top of weapon regulation as well. Basically, I have not imported any modern or antique firearms from the USA since 1988 - I gave up as the rules had just got too confusing and it was too easy to break the law. Its only got a lot worse. One of my friends still imports a lot from multiple countries but has largely given up on USA for the same reasons. There is a dealer in Sydney still importing antique firearms from the US. For all the time and expenses I am amazed that he can still make money in the process.

 

Cheers

Ross

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