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Lanchester anomaly in official Royal Armouries collection


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What am I seeing just below the front of the charging handle slot in this picture?

https://collections.royalarmouries.org/object/rac-object-277571

It looks as though it might be an added safety device to block the forward motion of the bolt.  If so it would be more readily used than the safety notch at the rear of the slot but I have never seen this device pictured on any other Lanchester.  This one is listed as a Mk.1**; I've never seen another reference to that variant.  The second star must be for this modification.

 

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Interesting response from Armouries.org.uk:

Dear Michael,

Excellent question – the device is straightforward enough, it is indeed a bolt block, but it’s to block the bolt IN the forward position to prevent it inadvertently coming to the rear and picking up a round, just as the Sten later did with the cocking handle mod and the Sterling did with its actual trigger mechanism.

The tricky bit is what constitutes a Lanchester Mk.I** - the above device is found fitted on Mk.I* guns and according to the book ‘The Guns of Dagenham’ (co-written with the former chief engineer at Sterling) it was a later ‘mod’ to the Mk.I* build standard. I can find no mention of it anywhere other than on our guns – that one has two clear * marks, others we have are secondarily marked with a smaller, fainter second star. I will see if I can find out what a Mk.I** actually embodied.

Regards,

 

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How interesting. I just happened to have an extra Lanchester stock in my gun room with this exact cutout. I was wondering what it was. There does not appear to be a fitting on the stock, nor a pre-drilled hole for the sheet metal "blocking" piece so I wonder how and where it was attached? I switched out the stocks and it fits my gun just fine, albeit with the carve out section. 

Does anyone out there have the blocking piece?

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6 hours ago, Rekraps said:

How interesting. I just happened to have an extra Lanchester stock in my gun room with this exact cutout. I was wondering what it was. There does not appear to be a fitting on the stock, nor a pre-drilled hole for the sheet metal "blocking" piece so I wonder how and where it was attached? I switched out the stocks and it fits my gun just fine, albeit with the carve out section. 

Does anyone out there have the blocking piece?

Sir,

I may have one. Wil have to check and see....

"BF"

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17 hours ago, Babyface Nelson said:

Sir,

I may have one. Wil have to check and see....

"BF"

Ah ha! Mystery cleared up. I have several trigger groups and one has the "nut" on the side while the other does not. It is here that the blocking bar is attached. 

 

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You just have to love the forums... it's like a living encyclopedia of living information. Not all is accurate, but there is enough that a consensus can be determined. In this case, Babyface Nelson held the key to our mystery. Now the question is this, why have we not seen any of this version out there? I bet its because there are so few C&R guns that would have the feature (to include the stock) and that most kit or tube guns where made from earlier production imported kits.

 

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I found it.  (I need to pay more attention to my own library) in A History of the Small Arms made by the Sterling Armaments Company pgs. 10-11.  This was an addition to the early Mk1* which was omitted in later production.  There is no indication given of when or at what S/N range the safety was discontinued but it would not be present on Mk1s, Mk1s converted to the MK1* configuration or in later Mk1*s so there is probably a very narrow window in which these were installed.

I have read elsewhere that most of the Lanchesters in the US came from Egypt, mine certainly did.  The guns converted in Egypt would certainly have lacked this additional safety

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On 8/30/2022 at 9:34 AM, Rekraps said:

Got one. Thanks fellow forum members.

 

Also, found an original 1.5" sling! Woah!

 

16 hours ago, Babyface Nelson said:

As requested

CBD01712-CC3D-4A53-A8C1-5763BFAD1A77.jpeg

424711F4-E1E5-4FF0-929C-40C697DC88D0.jpeg

15527591-088E-44C8-8C52-A1B8F8055EAD.jpeg

2D421BB6-481B-417C-B0BA-B9EB63A37486.jpeg

Is the part for sale?

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  • 4 weeks later...

So, John Andrewski is doing a bit of work on my C&R Lanchester and thanks to BabyFaceNelson I was able to obtain an OEM Lanchester Bolt Block lever and mounting hardware. Since I just happened to have a Lanchester stock with the cutout, I'm having John ensure that I can configure the Lanchester as original, OR mount the bolt block and with the matching stock have a very interesting end product. 

It will be about six months till I get it back (John is a busy guy) but when I do, I'll post pics of both configurations.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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