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Left handed rifle

Alf them clay men gave me the creeps the way that they came out of the wall real scarey.Dek:):)
 
They are clay pigeon rifles and I have paid for two sessions in advance then I broke me b....y arm. I phoned for that to re book then just asked off the cuff. Oh well I am a woman you know and what do we know about guns?. Jean.


Hi Jean,

The main difference is that with a shotgun which you would have been
using for clay pigeon shooting, the butt may have had a cheek piece to
rest your face on whilst shooting, - this would have been provided on
the left or right hand of the butt to suit right or left handed people.

The Enfield No1 and 4 rifles did not have any cheek pieces but the bolt
handle was fitted to the right of the gun and was obviously designed
with right handed people in mind!

Kind regards

Dave
 
Even worse were back in the muzzle loading days with flintlock rifles, holding the gun left handed means that as you look down the sights the gun lock is right in front of your face so when the primer flashes in the pan you can get sparks & powder burns on your nose. I know this from personal experience ! There are plenty of muzzle loading double barrel guns around with a lock each side often fired at birds in flight & therefore not sighted down the barrel.
There are examples of left handed antique firearms which were obviously made to order. Regardless of your handedness the same thing would apply if you were right handed but sighted in only the left eye.
 
I was an armourer in the R.E.M.E. for two years and serviced 24 different types of weapons and I never saw a left handed weapon. Some lefties fired right handed but dropped the rifle and operated the bolt left handed. Many a lad I had to train to fire right handed because it was the quickest way to reload in action. I have seen lads fire left handed and use the left hand over the top of the breach to operate the bolt, also slow in action!
Dave Edwards
 
There was a rifle which shot around corners with a mirror mounted at 45 degrees on the bend, there were two types one for left and one for right.
Dave Edwards
 
The present rifles have a gas ajuster which you can set to eject long or short,you do not burn your elbow then.
 
I remember the first time I saw someone firing a rifle from the left shoulder. He was a Yorkshireman and had trained himself while in the cadets.

It looked awkward but he could reload the .303 as quickly as the rest of us.
 
I don't know much about Lea Enfield rifles at all but if the spent cartridge ejects from the top of the rifle then why not have had a universal bolt mechanism; right or left by reversing a screw in lever. Maybe there were more handed parts.
 
Slightly changing the subject, so excuse me please for that, my wife is left handed amd bemoans the gadgets that work well for right handed people but not lefties - such as, surprisingly to us righties, a serrated bread knife - hence we always have sliced bread.

I thought she had finally flipped her lid when she told me about a left handed pencil she had bought.

She showed it to me and it looked just like any other pencil until she pointed out the subtle difference - if you hold an ordinary pencil in your right hand, you can read the maker's name along the wooden barrel normally but, if you transfer it to the other hand, the writing is upside down! A left handed pencil has the writing the other way up so it reads normally when in the left hand but, to us righties, the writing is the wrong way up.

It's a bit of a curiosity, really, as it actually writes OK whichever hand you hold it in of course. She got it from a shop in London that specialises in left handed goods.
 
Did'nt they look awkward, the cadre Sergents always tried to get the lads to use the rifle the conventional way. I struggled with many a new intake to use the normal way and they became good marksmen.
 
Only as good as the person behind the sight.I had a slightly cross eyed lad who could do a ! inch group at 100yds and another who was kicking up the chalk on the hill behind the Butts until I sorted him out then he did less than 1inch at 100yds. All good fun.
Dave Edwards
 
Only as good as the person behind the sight.I had a slightly cross eyed lad who could do a ! inch group at 100yds and another who was kicking up the chalk on the hill behind the Butts until I sorted him out then he did less than 1inch at 100yds. All good fun.
Dave Edwards
i shoot eggs at 100 yards but i am not bonk eyed.also i can shoot l/h or r/h.rifles depending on cheek piece and comb.:grinning:
 
I thought she had finally flipped her lid when she told me about a left handed pencil she had bought.

She showed it to me and it looked just like any other pencil until she pointed out the subtle difference - if you hold an ordinary pencil in your right hand, you can read the maker's name along the wooden barrel normally but, if you transfer it to the other hand, the writing is upside down! A left handed pencil has the writing the other way up so it reads normally when in the left hand but, to us righties, the writing is the wrong way up.

Hi,

If that's true, why not just sharpen the other end. And in any case, when was the last time anyone
actually read the name on the pencil whilst they were writing.
And if the 'wrong end' has already been sharpened, it could always be cut off with the left handed
serrated knife!

Kind regards
Dave
 
I believe that there were some left-handed versions of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L1A1_Self-Loading_Rifle but were very limited with many units only issued with one or two at most so the unusual first-come, first-served rule prevailed. I did not hear of any issues with empty cases as they ejected fast and wide of the shoulder.
I've never heard of a left handed SLR but I can see how it would've benefitted southpaws. It was a bit of an upheaval all round for us .303 trained squaddies. As well as learning how to fire the beast, we had to learn a new rifle drill, my right thigh got a battering, coming out of The Present Arms !
 
I am left handed but had no trouble firing a .303 rifle during my basic training. Never heard of a left handed rifle, what is the difference ? Eric
 
I am left handed but had no trouble firing a .303 rifle during my basic training. Never heard of a left handed rifle, what is the difference ? Eric
the bolt handle is on the Opposite Side to a r/h weapon and the cartridge ejects out to the left.1595621873905.png1595621979379.pngr/h rifle
 
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