Parts can not be fabricated?
Original parts should be available for another century but it is probably some combination of politics and the bureaucratic purchasing process being unable to purchase from anyone other than "approved" suppliers.
My great-grandfather was a tool and die maker in the Ukraine at the turn of the century. Back then, they were certain that their industry would be indispensable for many centuries to come. Just 50 years later, plastics were becoming the norm, and many metal industries saw dramatic reduction in staffing due to automation and assembly lines.
My guess is that many of the original tools and dies are becoming hard to find if not impossible, and that will only get worse in the coming decades. I have several CAD designers in my family who fabricate for sheet metal factories, and even they tell me that the “old way” of doing things with iron and steel is becoming rare.
I see in the article that they stopped making the rifle itself in 1955, yes 60 years ago. That makes the lack of spare parts less baffling.
“Parts can not be fabricated?”
In another 10 years they will be able to be computer generated and printed by a powder metal 3D printer.
No. These parts are METAL, and metal is notoriously hard to work with.
“Parts can not be fabricated?”
I agree. What is so hard about that. By the way I have 4 varients of the Lee-Enfields.
The original manufacturer, Longbranch Arsenal (later Canadian Arsenals Ltd) was shut down in 1976 by the Trudeau government. Supposedly parts for the No.4 rifles could still be bought from Pakistan (which acquired all the No. 4 machinery from ROF Fazakerley in Britain in the early 1960s)...but apparently Ottawa doesn’t want to do that.
I talk once in a while with a couple of Canadian Forces veterans (who date back to the C1A1 era); their perspective is that this is nothing more than politicians seeing another opportunity to profit from a new contract. A problem they’re facing, though, is that the replacement weapon has to be made in Canada...and Diemaco/Colt Canada doesn’t make bolt-action arms.