very rare and hardly known, i did however see a couple of examples while "visiting" a sas training base in jolly ole england, but that was more years ago than i care to recall.
The De Lisle carbine was not originally intended for use with a silencer, but simply as a means of making usable weapons out of worn out SMLE's that would otherwise be scrapped. I don't know who saw its potential for use with a suppressor, but its use of the subsonic .45 ACP made that use practical.
Thanks to the willingenss of the owner, I took several pictures in the museum: this is the first of these guns I put on my website, for the same reason you are mentioning.
Even info are scarce (for clear reasons, of course. )
@Jim K
Thank you for your contribution, it is really interesting.
As I have just noted, it is difficult to find info on this gun.
Rome, on the article from "Gung Ho" I mentioned in the "bibliography", says that the DeLisle started his work from a .22 caliber rifle.
He and Minnery (also mentioned) agree on the idea that the carbine was built around the silencer, while Skennerton add that out-of service guns were used to built the silenced carbine from scrap.
But I have not found any indication of a traditional carbine built to recover out-of-service rifle, it would be very useful / interesting to have some additional info / support for the above (even privately, in case you prefer).
A very interesting article and it partly contradicts what I had believed. I do wonder, though, if a mere 147 guns could have been as widely distributed and used as the story indicates. (I recall reading an article on the "Liberator" pistol that claimed tens of thousands were dropped in Europe and made a great contribution to the liberation effort - total nonsense.)
i'm with you on the liberator story. it's not true. i happen to have one that came from a warehouse stacked to the rafters with new in the box unopened fp-45 liberators. and if they were dropped as the stories claimed i'm sure 1000's wouldn't of been left behind warehoused. besides that i have never run across anyone who ever used one or even saw one in the ETO why drop thousands of liberator 45's when you can drop sten guns
As far as serious researchers can determine, of the million (or whatever) "Liberators" sent to the ETO, exactly zero were dropped and the effect on the German army was just as one might expect - zero.
They were also sent to the PTO with, again, stories of millions of Japanese killed with them, but, again, nonsense. A few were reportedly used by police in the Philippines until they got better guns, and some may have turned up in China. But all in all, another wartime waste of money on someone's (John Steinbeck in this case) great idea.
Author Ian Skennerton wrote a little book about the inventor, DeLisle and his firearms: ‘DE LISLE COMMANDO CARBINE’
While it's unlikely that you will ever get to own an original DeLisle, the book is interesging and I highly recommend it.
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