The Australian Lithgow WW2 manufactured Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk.III (T) Sniper Rifle

During the 1939-45 War, Australia never had tooling to manufacture the Lee-Enfield Rifle No.4 and its sniping version the No.4(T) - "T" for Telescope. But the Lithgow factory had tremendous experience in the production of accurate and well-built S.M.L.E. rifles, all furnished with fine quality Australian coachwood stocking.

The British No.4(T) sniping rifles were in short supply world-wide, leading to the Lithgow staff seeking an alternative means of supplying their Antipodean forces with an equivalent.

A comparatively small number of these rifles were manufactured late in the Second World War at the Lithgow Arms factory. Two versions were made, using the Pattern 1918 design of telescopic sight well-known from the First World War as having been manufactured by the Aldis and Periscope Prism optical companies for use initially on the British Enfield Rifle No.3(T). However, the 'scopes used on these rifles were newly made by the Australian Optical Company of Melbourne.

The rifle illustrated here is the "Low mount" version, with the 'scope's sight-line as low as possible to the rifle's bore-line. This meant that the standard barrel-mounted tangent-leaf rear sight could not be used, so a second design of "High Mount" was also developed that permitted use of the open sight without removal of the 'scope.

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These rifles were used by Australian Forces late in WWII, usually without the addition of the cheek-piece that was fitted to many British equivalent sniping rifles. The rifles were again issued in the Korean War, mostly still without cheek-pieces, which appear to have been added to some of these rifles at a later point.

The initial contract with Lithgow was for 2,500 rifles, but the 1939-45 War ended before production was completed, with the main part of the reduced order being a little over 1,100 'High Mount' rifles, and less than five hundred of these 'Low Mount' versions; a total of just over 1,600 rifles.