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Australia's Experimental 7.62x51mm Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Rifle No.6

The rifle pictured above is chambered in 7.62x51mm and has been adapted to feed from L1A1 rifle magazines. The rifle was one of a number of trials rifles built during the Second World War as a prototype ‘No.6′ Lee-Enfield which was then subsequently repurposed in the mid-1950s as a basis for efforts to convert .303 Lee-Enfields to chamber the new NATO round.

This particular rifle was built at Lithgow in 1942 and adapted for the Australian No.6  ‘Jungle Carbine’ testing in 1944. The war, however, ended before the Australian Jungle Carbine could enter service and the adapted rifles were placed in store.

A pair of 7.62x51mm prototypes (from Ian Skennerton’s The Lee Enfield Story)

In 1954 it was decided by the Australian government that along with Britain and Canada they would adopt the FN FAL in 7.62x51mm. In 1955 the Australian Army began troop trials with what would become the L1A1. Efforts to convert some Lee-Enfield rifles also began. 

In 1958 a number of the earlier No.6 trials rifles were rechambered and adapted to load from X8E1 FN rifle magazines and a L1A1 flash hider was added along with upgraded sights. Around a dozen of these 7.62x51mm No.6 rifles were assembled. Despite interest in the rechambered rifles from the Royal Australian Air Force the Lee-Enfield actions, however, were found to struggle with the pressures of the new cartridge this eventually forced the project to be abandoned as too costly to mitigate.

L1A1 production in Australia subsequently began in 1959. Britain also made efforts to rechamber .303 rifles, developing a conversion of the Rifle No.4. The L8 series of 7.62x51mm chambered rifles proved to be better at standing up to the higher chamber pressures.

Sources:

Experimental Short Magazine Lee-Enfield No.6 Rifle, AWM, (source)

The Lee Enfield Story, I. Skennerton, (1993)