>>63812291
>Brits wanted quiet weapon for commandos to quietly take out sentries back in WW2
>some guy had been tinkering with a few caliber conversions of a Lee Enfield, .22LR, 9mm Parabellum, and .45 Auto
>.22 was quiet, but it's a .22
>9mm had better power and shared ammo with the Sten, but it was louder
>.45 was quiet and also had power
>conversion is outright a modified Lee Enfield rifle, using a spare Thompson barrel with gas vents drilled into it, venting into that large integrated silencer, uses modified 1911 pistol magazines
They only made a little over a hundred of the things, but they worked out fairly well for their commandos.
Only about 90% reliable (sometimes they didn't want to quite eject empties right), but you weren't particularly expected to get into full blown shootouts with these either. You'd take your shot at your unsuspecting target, then very slowly and quietly work the action while staying in hiding. Some of the DeLisle carbines even had cutouts on the underside of the bolt-handle stem with little wood inserts in them, just to help reduce the potential noise from that point contacting the receiver when you closed the bolt.
There's reproductions of them around here and there, not on any large mass production scale, but there's probably more repros of them by now than there ever were original guns. It's not all that difficult of a conversion, so if you couldn't find an existing one for a price you'd like, a decent gunsmith should be able to convert an Enfield with a shot out bore.
Otherwise, there's also various modernized takes on the concept, and some handfuls of similar 'what-if' conversions of other old bolt-action rifles of that era.
