Yesterday's Weapons Forums

What a lovely piece of history!

I love the way the Aussies marked so much on the butts of their rifles. What I can decipher from it is as follows:

The shield is the Lithgow factory mark (I think)
Below it (the small mark) is an indistinct mark so I can't guess at that.
Below that is the "III" indicating it was a No.1 Mark III rifle. In 1915 that rifle would have originally been fitted with volley sights, a magazine cut off and windage adjustable rear sight.

The 2/17 suggests the rifle was worked on in February of 1917 - might be worth checking the barrel date to see if it was rebarreled then.

The "CMF" is the Citizen Military Forces i.e The Australian Army
The "5MD" is the 5th Military District which was Western Command, West Australia. I think Perth is the biggest city in that area?

The "4536" is the rack number

The "HV" means high velocity - in other words the rifle was sighted for the mark VII ammo.

I don't know what the symbol is to the right of the HV but it looks very interesting

The "MAO" is the Orange rifle factory No.2 in New South Wales, Australia and the 4/45 suggests it visited there in april of 1945 - perhaps to be restocked in coach wood. At least the forestock looks like coachwood.

pretty much my take , i believe the forestock-mkIII* was put on her in 45 but it could have been the 1917 visit as they would have been adding the * bits then [taking off the mkIII bits mostly] but switching the rear sight might be associated with the "HV" im thinking