![1917 enfield eddystone serial numbers 1917 enfield eddystone serial numbers](https://image.invaluable.com/housePhotos/circlem/68/611568/H3366-L127784822.jpg)
I think the red and white bands further back would go with the Drill Purpose mark, although they weren't always used.ĭP designation could have been used for rifles beyond accurate or safe use with live ammunition, but wasn't always. 30-06, though I can't be certain nobody else used it for something completely different. The red band near the muzzle usually meant. I don't think they ever got to fire a rifle at a German, although I know of one British fighter pilot getting shot in the buttock during his parachute descent. They included young men barred from enlistment due to essential occupations, and thanks to events earlier in the century, there were a lot of old men like you don't want hunting you. They eventually manned anti-aircraft guns and coastal batteries, and lost about 1200 dead in the war.
1917 enfield eddystone serial numbers tv#
It is a shame that TV comedy has branded them forever as a band of bungling geriatrics. The majority of British red-banded Enfields went to the Home Guard, and at least 615,000 and perhaps all of them weren't lent but purchased, probably at a very neighbourly price, as there was no Lend-lease until 1941.
![1917 enfield eddystone serial numbers 1917 enfield eddystone serial numbers](https://i.imgur.com/NjzrTQHl.jpg)
If it belonged with the rifle, and especially if it is serial numbered, you could replace that last little bit of wood along a line where the junction with the red paint would make the join line inconspicuous. You can get an original one from S&S Firearms. Originality is now well worth preserving on an unaltered M1917, so I wouldn't think of replacing the handguard unless I thought it was a replacement. I don't know if the handguard was stamped with the serial too, but you should look for traces of the paint in the pores of the forend. The trouble is, in those I have seen it went around the forend, and here it looks like it is only on the handguard, which therefore might be a replacement. That is true about the red band being British - or possibly Canadian, though I haven't heard that.