Gerald says I'm up to bat. :) (Hey, Gerald, how's things?)

As Stan pointed out, and as I have seen for myself, many (if not MOST) of the muzzle-loading Enfield-type arms being bought by our service personnel in Afghanistan were not actually made in England, but were copies made on the old Northwest Frontier of India (now Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan) ... or parts guns built up in the region from parts of various pedigree. The arms-making business was well-established among the tribesmen of the NW Frontier, and they copied everything from smoothbore muskets, through P53-style Enfields, Sniders, Martini-Henrys, etc. The technology of the later breechloaders tended to defeat them, but they did copy even AK-47s (some of these guns weren't strictly copies, but were made up from some legit parts and some local-made parts).

As far as the P53-style Enfields go, you can always tell the difference. Sometimes it's as obvious as a letter being stamped backwards in the markings (the tribesmen neither rear or wrote English, after all), sometimes it's the overall lack of quality and finish (guns made at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock were extremely well made; the tribal guns very much less so), sometimes it's the wrong markings, or a mismatch of markings, or some detail of a part wrong.

On these things, photos would be worth 1000 words. If you'd care to e-mail me some digital photos that show the overall gun, details of the lock, and any and all markings, I'd be happy to take a look at them.

FWIW, the markings you described were for inspection and proof at the RSAF-Enfield. FWIW, the tribesmen often copied these markings as well (not knowing what they meant, but trying to copy them faithfully from another gun).

Geoff Walden