Thread: Urgent Lee-Enfield magazine question

Hey all,

We've got a Lee-Enfield No. 1 Mk III*, and I've been offered a magazine and stripper clip that is simply labelled No. 1 Mk III (note the lack of *). I can't visually compare them, and the current owner doesn't know if it's actually from a Mk III* era rifle or not.

So my question is, are the magazines the same for these two rifles? If this magazine is indeed from a Mk III rifle, can I use it in our Mk III*?

Internet search hopeless...

The chief differences between No. 1 Mk. iii and Mk. iii* were

1. the rear sight windage knob was dispensed with (hence the right rear sight protector sticks funnily out to the right, allowing for you to look out for a windage enabled sight and replace the simpler one, if you wish),

2. (of interest to you) no magazine cut-off. This is however a device riding above the magazine and not integral with the magazine itself, so mag should be the same, especially given that post ww1 they reintroduced the magazine cut-off. The cut off was seen both as an economy feature, but more so as a safety feature, preventing inadvertent chambering of rounds.

Buy the magazine, should fit fine in theory. Note, sometimes Enfield magazines need tuning to work perfectly. Pay about NZ$50.

Should work fine. The MkIII* rifle was just a simplified version to speedup msnufacturing that deleted the mag cut off and windage adjustable rear sight of the MkIII.

Cordite beat me to it ��

All versions of the stripper clip (proper name charger) will work in the charger bridge so no worries there, get several and you can do the rifle practice no22, if you can find enough ammo.