Tonight we are looking at the so called ‘fat boy’ stock on the P14 Enfield Rifle. The P14 series of rifles were produced in the USA in the First World War for the British and were produced by three manufacturers; Winchester, Remington and Eddystone (a subsidiary of Remington). We have previously looked at the rifle here, that example having the standard stock. Tonight we have an opportunity to compare the standard stock with the ‘fat boy’:
As far as I can ascertain, the ‘fat boy’ was only used on Eddystone rifles, and then not all of them, both the rifles in the above photograph are Eddystone rifles, but the upper is the ‘fat boy’ and the lower is the standard model. The ‘fat boy’ differs in two ways, firstly the hand grooves in the fore stock have been deleted:
Secondly, this whole area has been thickened:
This is particularly apparent when compared with the standard model:
I have not found a definitive reason for this variation, but one theory is that it strengthened the stock at a weak point that then allowed the rifle to be used for firing rifle grenades with less chance of cracking. Incidentally, the wood used in the stocks is apparently American Black Walnut.
Amongst collectors, the standard rifle is generally regarded as being the more ergonomical of the two patterns, but I cannot find any hard evidence of when the change occurred or why and it may just be a manufacturing variation, although the rifle grenade story is intriguing.
Apart from its length, the pouch conformed to the standard design that had been in use since the start of the war, described in the 37 pattern webbing manual as:
This buckle has a loop at the top which serves for connecting the hook on the shoulder strap. Two double hooks are fitted to the back of each pouch for attachment to the waist belt:
As mentioned earlier, these early MK III pouches retained the brass press studs to secure the lid:
This particular pouch is marked on the underside of the lid as having been manufactured by BG Ltd in 1943:
These pouches saw service after the war and the following instructions for what to carry in them come from a Royal Navy publication of 1950:
The design features the three allied war leaders, left to right we have US President Franklin D Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin. The three respective nations’ flags are also included in the design as is the phrase “Souvenir of the World’s War”.
The backing to the mirror has degraded now, leading to the unsightly black spots, however these items were entirely ephemeral in nature and it is doubtful anyone expected them to be used for more than a few years, never mind still being in existence seventy five years later. Sadly this mirror has no information on which if any charity it was originally sold to raise money for, but it is a delightful and probably rare survivor.
The water bottle and its carrier were not originally included in the set, and had to be retrospectively added. This component is not shown above, but we have covered it 
The yoke itself was a major advance for this set of webbing as it was padded and far more comfortable than previous webbing sets and the 58 pattern set was to see service right through until the mid-1990s, with the Falklands campaign being its shining hour. By the fist Gulf War it was partially replaced by PLCE, but was still used by many troops who had not yet received the new PLCE web set.
The first set of fitting instructions gives the following, comprehensive, overview of the set: