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A friend has a very tidy Lithgow SMLE stamped 1943 (I think, could be 1942). It looks unissued and came complete with brand new bayonet. The only thing that looks out of place is that the wood furniture has been gloss varnished. I thought maybe it was a parade rifle except the brass butt plate is unscuffed. Were these rifles ever issued with a varnished finish? Colin

Might not be varnished but many years of linseed oil. Bear in mind that the coachwood is a different surface than the British walnut. If its a 1942 gun then the shaping of the wood should be quite rough - especially at the fore-end. If its smoothed then it may have been refinished.

That's the problem with boiled linseed, because it sets, it does build a varnish like finish ... Not an issue on a civilian rife, but wrong, wrong wrong on a military rifle!

Avoided by feeding with raw linseed oil, I would gently flat with a wet then dry 3M red scotchbrite, then feed with raw to achieve a rich semi matt finish.

If the rifle has very light coloured wood, then it might be one of the ones built from new parts by the US J Jovino company.

The number prefix usually indicates whether its a real rifle or one of the J Jovino new-builds.

This is definitely not a build up of linseed oil - this is clearly a proprietary varnish like Ronseal or similar. The wood is quite dark and colour matches throughout. It has a disc inlet in the side of the butt stock - can't remember what is on it. The wood is finely finished with no tooling marks or roughness, so as suggested it might have ben refinished, However, the varnish does look incongruous on a military rifle, hence this request for info. The guy who owns the rifle is away at the moment, but when he gets back I'll take some photos and record the numbers, which I will post. It is a pity as this is a lovely clean SMLE with Lithgow markings - hopefully when he reads this he will agree to strip the rifle and remove the varnish and treat it with boiled linseed as originally intended. Thanks for the interest - watch out for photos.

Look forward to the pics, people disagree about boiled as opposed to raw linseed oil, but personally I use raw and then hand buff to a lustre finish.

Boiled linseed oil is the work of the devil.

dromia wrote:Boiled linseed oil is the work of the devil.

Here here

The thing about Australian Coachwood (used on virtually all Lithgow built SMLE's and all L1A1's) is that its softer than the alternative northern hemisphere Walnut, Beech and Birch, as a result it did bruise much easier in service.

If the stock is in very good order, its more than likely a NOS Wartime replacement

A standard preservative used by the Aussies was creosote I believe, but that said, stick to the RAW linseed!

Got to love those Lithgow SMLE's

C and g firearms are assembling new lee enfield no1 mk3 and no4 parts from old unissued parts and using unissued barrels and wood could he have got it from there?

Hunter87 wrote:C and g firearms are assembling new lee enfield no1 mk3 and no4 parts from old unissued parts and using unissued barrels and wood could he have got it from there?

I wouldn't have thought so, as most of the C&G SMLE's appear to be built up from wartime BSA action bodies. Not a fan of these new builds, but each to his own.