Howdy again - thank'ee for the kind words ...
To answer the questions:
1. Not a clan outfit, actually - rather, it is the khaki service uniform of a British Empire Highland Regiment officer. Not really representative of any particular Regiment at present, since I currently have a bit of a "mix'n'match" situation with the accessories - particularly the sporran and hose. The kilt is in "Government Sett" (commonly known as Black Watch Tartan.) The era depicted is circa 1890 - 1900.
2. Not too warm at all, really - it is tropical attire, after all. The day that picture was taken (just this past weekend, actually) it got over 85°F, and I was quite comfortable. The kilt is constructed of fairly heavy wool, but then a kilt is even "breezier" than shorts.
3. The occasion was a multiple-era military re-enactment event, "Soldiers of the Two Millenia", sponsored by the Museum of the Regiments in Calgary - participants ranged from a group depicting the Roman Imperial XXIst Legion to a WWII Canadian unit. Quite a weekend, actually.
4. The weaponry (all of which an officer had to acquire privately at his own expense) includes:
- in the holster, I had my .455 Webley MkVI revolver ( which is a bit "late" really - i.e. that model is WWI vintage) -
- however, I had barely missed receiving my newly acquired pre-1899 Webley "WG Target Model" .450/.455 revolver in time for this event - just the sort of revolver an officer would own -
- the primary edged weapon of a Highland Officer was a basket-hilted sword such as you see me wearing in the picture - with the bright steel hilt painted black for field service, and the equally shiny steel scabbard camouflaged with a khaki cover:
- if you look closely at the original photo I posted, you'll note that I do have a
sgian dhub tucked into my right sock - in this case a very serviceable - i.e. razor sharp - stag-handled item, rather than the fancy-dress toys you generally see with highland attire nowadays.
- although British officers traditionally did not carry or use rifles, that was beginning to change - again, an officer would likely have a fine-quality, privately purchased rifle, albeit likely of the latest military pattern. In the time-frame depicted, that would either have been the "Rifle, Magazine, Lee-Metford" (introduced 1888) or the nearly identical, but for the type of rifling, "Rifle, Magazine, Lee-Enfield" (1895) - which is now often referred to as the "Long Lee-Enfield" to differentiate it from the "Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee-Enfield" - the S.M.L.E. - adopted in 1904. I just happen
to have a very fine example of such a high-quality, commercially produced Long Lee-Enfield - which was a privately owned Canadian target rifle,
very well preserved:
(I should perhaps mention that the Pattern 1903 bandolier in the above photo is "incorrect" for this rifle, actually. This bandolier was specifically designed to carry .303 cartridges in 5-round "chargers" (i.e. stripper clips) - two chargers to each pocket - but the rifle in fact predates the charger-loading feature in the Lee-Enfield lineage - it has no "charger bridge" for such loading; rather, the rounds were simply pressed into the magaziine, through the open action, one at a time. The rifle does feature a "cutoff plate" - a device which swings in to isolate the rounds in the loaded magazine - the idea being that the rifle would be single-loaded until the situation became really hot and heavy, then the 10-round magazine could then be brought into play. )
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