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Gentlemen

Thanks to each of you for your kind compliments about the newest occupant of my rifle cabinet. I feel delighted and privileged to have the honour of being this rifle's custodian.

Some observations, comments and questions have been raised and I will try to deal with each of them in turn.

First of all, Roy. You must know that I can be immune to all sorts of whining, begging and blandishments -- at least for a while. You can't have all the good ones, you know. Seriously, keep up the good work with your acquisitions and postings. I always look forward to them, my friend.

2152hg has made some observant comments about the rifle's action. I have learned something new from him. I had previously thought that all CLLE modifications to No1 long Lees had only been to miltary stock. I guess it makes sense that the manufacturers might also modify commercial ones that were in stock or previously sold. As to whether this rifle is built on a CLLE action, I think not. The reason is that it has no slot milled on the right side of the action for a magazine cut-off. All of the Lee N01 factory sporters that I have seen have had the provision for a cut-off. Almost anything is possible, however. I do note that the rivets holding the charger to the body are slightly more visible on this action than on my 1917 No1 MkIII*. You have also spotted that there is no milled cut-out on the left side of the action for the safety of a miltary pattern No1 MkIII. I would point out that neither were the commercial long Lee sporter actions milled in the same place for the long range sight of the military version. So I have to conclude from this that actions destined for factory sporters, whether No1 long Lees or No1 MkIII's were not sujected to all of the machining operations as their military pattern cousins. Another unusual point, that would have been invisible to you, is that this rifle is also not machined for the magazine cut-off. It is my understanding that the No1 MkIIIs all had this provision until the appearance of the No1 MkIII* in 1917. We know, owever, that this rifle was built in 1913. It's questions such as these that make these rifles so fascinating.

Grenadier, this rifle is proofed and stamped the 40/270 gr load. Any shooting I do with it will be with the custom 300gr mold that I had made for my 375-303.

And now on with the investigation, likely never to be completed, about this rifle's journey from Hyde Park, London to the west coast of Canada.