Enfield Enforcer

[Buzz]

Hey all, what sort of price are Enforcers going for nowadays? I have tried looking on google but can't seem to find any.

Cheers for any help.

Buzz

[dodgyrog]

Stupid money £2000 +

[Mezzer]

Inasmuch as I enjoy my Enfield No 4, I wouldn't be prepared to pay two grand for an Enforcer anytime soon ... no matter what condition it was in.

Mezzer

[Maggot]

Hmmm

I always fancied an L42 until I looked at the cost, then the possibility of it shooting like a dog, incorrect scope etc etc.

Shame, but there you go, there were not that many about.

I know of one that is in good order but scopeless, still 2K ish if it does get sold.

My M67 shoots as well (if not better) and cost £100....

[huntervixen]

A few years ago (2009) you could pick them up for around £1000, all original with scope! A good number of Police Enforcer's and those issued to certain "Home Office" affiliated departments went into the melting pot I believe.

Thats fine, we only paid for them in the first place!! Someone told me the survivors number only a few hundred, so they have to be the rarest of the Enfield Snipers.

[dromia]

Some were sold/given to the Taliban to fight the Ruskies.

[Sandgroper]

Some were sold/given to the Taliban to fight the Ruskies.

Sorry to be pedantic, but the Taliban never fought the Russians. They only came into existence, in 1994, after the Russians had left (1989). The higher echelons of the Taliban came from the ranks of Pakistani trained Mujahideen.

[dromia]

OK, stand corrected they were sold/given to the same nutters that became the taliban.

[huntervixen]

Thats very interesting indeed, I would love to see a picture of one recovered from Afghanistan, rather embarrassing for the Government if its photographed in the hands of a dead Taliban fighter....Imagine the newspaper headlines " Ex Met Police Sniper Rifle kills Coalition troops " they would have a field day!!!

I suppose, the agency of the day responsible (MI6 I would guess), would have removed all identifying markings and ensured they arrived in theater via a third party, so they could retain deniability........."You are quite wrong, nothing to do with us, not Enforcers, they are just very good Khyber Specials"!

[Laurie]

I'm not surprised at the quoted price given the recent histories of any out of the normal Enfields. I WAS surprised at how relatively cheap they were when forces disposed of them in the late 1980s / early 90s. Many were bought by PR shooters who'd just lost their self-loaders post-Hungerford and were probably soon shot to death, barrel-wise at any rate.

I doubt if many, if any, were destroyed or donated to anybody abroad. Most police forces were 'upgrading' their rifles in the late 80s and Hungerford increased equipment budgets. This was the second generation of marksmen rifles and heavy-barrel commercial rifles were the norm - Parker-Hale M85 and 87, Ruger 77V, Remington 700PSS in .243 Win very popular. Equipment was (and still is today) entirely the property of the constabulary concerned and there was no HO guidance at the time stopping disposal to the gun trade. So, I'm pretty sure a very high percentage of Enforcers were sold on the open market. That's how I got mine, my local dealer York Guns being very active in this (surplus arms) business at the time and widely used by police forces, museums, schools, executors of the late owners of private collections etc to buy up unwanted weapons.

Mine cost me £250 without Pecar scope in the late 80s if I recall right, in excellent condition. Whichever force this and around 15 fellows had come from had also fitted P-H target iron sights to the rifles so they could be used in competition. The rear base was still in situ, but the moving arm had been removed and was no doubt sitting on some armourer's shelf somewhere. With a £100 Japanese scope, I was up and running with what was a very good 100-600 yard rifle for the time using handloads, although its performance would likely seem pretty mediocre today. All the Enforcers I saw for sale at the time came without the scopes - the police units involved no doubt regarded them as high-quality, high value items to be recycled onto replacement rifles, although I suspect few were so used, or if so only termporarily, examples of the next generation police rifles that I've seen disposed of mostly having higher mag Leupolds when they came to be sold.

Many of the next generation police rifles also ended up in the civilian market when forces started buying AIs - Tikka M55s, Ruger 77Vs, and PSSs that I've seen in 12 to 18 size lots. At some time or other, HO guidance has since been issued to try to stop this, and I did see all the bits from around 15 stripped P-H M85s sold to the trade around seven years ago, everything except the barrelled actions which were presumably destroyed so that no UK citizens (who'd paid for them) could use (or in the politician's nightmare, abuse) them. Vandalism and theft! Nevertheless, about a year after that, I saw 15 or more .243 PSS outfits in hard cases with Harris bi-pods and Leupolds from a force who quietly broke the rules and took the money.

I suspect one reason why Enforcers have become extremely scarce like other limited production models is that as they've subsequently been recycled into the UK gun trade and specialist Enfield dealers from civilian owners is that many if not most, have gone to North America where there is an insatiable demand for heavy-barrel 7.62mm Enefields. A specialist dealer in South Yorkshire told me maybe 10 years ago that he had a long client list of US and Canadian buyers who wanted Enforcers, L39s and L42s etc., and who were willing to pay way over the odds for them.

I believe that when HMG eventually sold off its surplus L42s a policy decision was made to sell them outside the UK, although that again may have been price led. On that basis any L42s around are likely to be re-imports. Going in the other direction, Canadians have a huge interest in Parker-Hale marksman and sniper rifles (because of the Canadian Army use of the P-H M82 as its C2 / C3 sniper rifle, and the M87 for something else), and appropriate P-Hs sell for far more there than here - M82, M85, and M87. See:

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/sh ... 3A1-Rifles

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