I've been wondering about the EY mark found on the older Grenade Launcher rifles.
EY just doesn't sound right as meaning "Emergency Use" though apparently thats how later manuals define it.
I've found a couple of sites quoting Homeguardsmen and others as saying that EY was the initials of the fellow who first came up with the idea of converting near shot out older rifles for use as grenade launchers by wire wrapping the fore ends.
Those sites gave two differing spellings of the fellow's name, one seemed to be an awkward French spelling that if theres anything to the tale might have been Anglicized later on.
Did the EY mark come before the decision to wire wrap the rifles or afterwards?
Were these rifles already marked as being marginally accurate, but for some reason not suitable for an FTR, perhaps due to resources being better used in finishing out new rifles, before the decision came to wire wrap them for use as launchers?
"Emergency Use Only" just doesn't sound right as a military term. Of course since Americans and the English are said to be divided by a common language it may sound better to the English than to our ears.
Nope...some show up with like new barrels. The Indians apparently designated some Mk3*s for the GF role right out of the box, or at least without having been sorely used. Also, from what I've seen, it appears that not all EY marked rifles were reinforced for GF usage.Are GF rifles typically worn out in the barrel?
Hard to make any assumptions about any specific rifle, don't know that there's enough solid proof one way or the other. If the rifle is "EY" marked, I'd suspect so, but I don't know what all the standards were to so designate a rifle. I've never heard about GF blanks being any worse in that regard than ball ammo, but that certainly doesn't mean anything.Would a WW1 rifle converted to GF specs typically have a worn bore?
Did the special ammo for grenades cause bore erosion?
I've never owned a rifle with an EY marking.Now we all know what is stamped on all your rusty “boat anchor” Enfield’s
(And why your barrel bores are in such bad shape)![]()
Could be the EY marking resulted in a code word, like Victor Charles and VC.breakeypSkennerton mentions EY as an inventor's name in an early Lee book. I don't think he repeated it in the later books. I suspect later writers picked it up from Ian. During a visit to the Pattern Room I found an unpublished book on grenades that mentions the EY Man and I suspect that was Ian's source that he later found to be questionable.
Another site , Australian veteran memoirs I think, Said the EY stood for "Extra Yoked" I supposed the extra binding of the wood might be considered a Yoking operation by Australian usage of the term.Rodded grenades tended to ring the bore (and how!) and the general effect of any grenade launching is very severe. Things take a pounding and start to break.
An Australian document I have here dated 1945 describes E.Y. as 'extra yield' so they were arguing about it even then.
I tend to agree with this...although I'm a chicken came first sort myself.What came first, the chicken or the egg?
In this case I believe the EY designation came first. Why they were originally downgraded to such status is where the first debate comes to play. I've seen nothing in writing aside they were downgraded and set back as reserve.
EY's were then selected for cord wrapping but there's another debate in regard to that. Some contend that EY's lacking the cord/wire wrap are rifles which were unwrapped and rebuilt. I always felt they simply weren't wrapped at all and were just used as reserve weapons. There is no reason why they couldn't have been unwrapped prior to being sent into reserve either.
I don't know what is right anymore, but I do know the egg came first![]()