Rare WWII Australian ‘jungle carbine’ surfaces, with gun control battle scars (PHOTOS)

By Chris Eger

This rare No 6 Mk I Lithgow Enfield was recently returned to the museum of the factory it was born in during the last days of WWII. (Photo: Lithgow Small Arms Museum)
In the tail end of World War II, the Australian military was crafting a shortened Enfield .303 for jungle warfare, but it never made it into full-scale production before the A-bomb ended the conflict.
The above beauty is a rare bird and a bit of evolving gun control history all in one.
The Lithgow Small Arms Factory, which crafted Australian Lee-Enfields and bayonets from 1912 into the 1950s when they switched to making inch-pattern semi-auto FAL (L1A1SLR) rifles, had this beautiful No 6 Mk I Lithgow Enfield recently turned over to their museum from the New South Wales Police. According to the museum, it is a super low serial (XP124) and was one of just 100 of that rare model made, 50 with brass butts and 50 with rubber.
As noted by a British site on everything Enfield, the No. 6 Australian was that country’s domestically-made equivalent to the British No. 5 “Jungle Carbine” designed for use in the Pacific island fighting in WWII and, “Only the capitulation by Japan, which brought

Source: Guns.com