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While cruising the EuroArms Italia website, I came across this interesting Enfield carbine. It's obviously a real Lee Enfield cavalry carbine made in 1900, but the stock looks to have been shortened, most likely as a civilian sporter. It retains most of it's correct and rare attributes, such as the leather site protector and flattened bolt knob. These were characteristics only for carbines, along with the shorter 6 round magazine, which enabled sliding in and out of saddle buckets easily.
The carbine version of the Lee series of rifles started around 1895 and were made up until the adoption of the SMLE around 1902. Volley sights were done away with as this was a short range weapon (but the sights were still graduated to 2000 yards, not so short range). The barrel lost around 10 inches and the weight reduced by ten pounds. The earlier rifles had sling hooks also for saddle use, which were universally discontinued on the introduction of Enfield rifling.
With the advent of the Boer War, Enfields were quickly issued to troops shipping out, but were found to shoot off target, as the sealed pattern had defective sights, and the approval process missed that important item. After quickly modifying the guns in the field, and the factory turning out a correct sight, the Enfield was quickly on it's way to becoming the most long lived rifle of the British empire.
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Just when you think you've seen every possible modification to the AR weapon system, another one comes along. This one is particularly interesting as it's the invention of Mack Gwinn Jr., ex special forces and founder of Bushmaster, one of the leading companies building the AR platform today. His new company, MGI (MG Industries) has brought the AR to it's next iteration as a completely modular weapons system, able to easily be converted between many calibers from .22 rimfire to .50 Beowolf.
The heart of the Marck 15 (weapon system is a modular lower receiver with a replaceable magazine well, and a quick change barrel and bolt. This allows quickly converting the rifle to any number of calibers, my favorite being the .45 acp. This changes the carbine into the spiritual successor to the grease gun, and actually uses original magazines. The gun isn't much bigger or heavier than the original, especially with the stock collapsed. Besides being handy, it has a much better chance at being reliable also, the original I had in Vietnam had a disturbing tendency to empty the mag at the slightest bump. Seems to be an interesting take on the AR-15.