The London Armoury Gun

The third Enfield is a short 24-inch barrel musketoon, two bands, fitted with bayonet stud on the barrel. The stud has a short guide rib. (Front band is missing, but had a swivel.) It is unusual because, although marked as made by the London Armoury Company, it has a Belgian barrel. Beneath, the bottom is stamped (see Fig. 6) and on the top left quadrant, mingled with the British government crown and number stamps, is the mark of the Liege proof house: (see Fig. 7). The tube bears the London Proof House stamp 403, and, on top, the crown over crossed flags or pennons of the Enfield proof. The barrel on the bottom is also stamped l.a.c. in small letters, and the gun assembly or work number is 22, on both barrel and plug. The percussioning was done in England, and the lump bears a mark crown over a, while the top quadrant has a similar crown over vr (see Fig. 8). Erosion and flash pitting confounds the marks with false traces of other marks on the breech, but the top of the breech, as on all Enfields, is clearly stamped with the distinctive crowns and lines on both tang of plug and breech of barrel, on the top flat, as well as a visible draw mark.
Inside, the lock is unmarked except for a tiny stamp l.a.c. while outside, it is border line engraved and forward of the hammer is engraved London Armoury.
The stock is machine inletted and, as is also the case with the Potts & Hunt inletting, all possible wood is permitted to remain in the lock mortise. Only the wood essential to be removed for free motion of the lock parts is taken away; the rest left untouched for maximum strength. The construction of lock inletting in both Potts & Hunt and London Armoury guns suggests a possibility that the Potts & Hunt stock was in fact inletted by London Armoury. Both stocks are of walnut, unlike the soft-wood Birmingham Tower gun stock.
The barrel inletter, whose initial b is stamped in the barrel groove, made a mistake in reassembling the guns. He selected barrel No. VII and put it with stock No. VIII, his own initial B having obscured slighdy one of the Roman I’s. The ramrod groove, though bored through, has only a narrow slot from rear band to nosecap, too narrow to stamp the stock maker’s name in. The only stock mark of interest is an anchor and JS stamped at the tang of the brass guard on the small of the stock: (Fig. 9). The same stamp also is found on the stocks of Kerr revolvers, L.A.C. manufacture. The London Armoury butt plate, of brass, is engraved on the heel tang 242. Sight is the carbine leaf sight with fixed leaf at 100, and folding leaves for 200 and 300 yards.