How common are MA41 Magazine Cutoffs?

[Bruce_in_Oz]

What is unknown and will probably stay that way, is the quantities of parts, including bodies, that sat in storage, not quite finished until needed, or accepted and just placed into store.

The final factory mark is supposed to be there at acceptance, but at what stage was it applied?

Because of the method of production, runs of parts would be scheduled, machinery tools and gauges allocated and materials sourced. ONE component; as many machines, dies, gauges, tools etc, that it took to finish the job. This was the 19th Century way, as re-imagined by the lads at Pratt and Whitney.

Given a part was not completed until it had passed ALL inspections, at every stage right through to heat-treatment and surface finishing, there would have probably been a zillion carefully labeled boxes of funny-looking metal bits stacked up in the store, or in the feeder galleries adjacent to the machine floors. A classic is barrels: At each stage, appropriate stamps were applied to each workpiece as it proceeded down the line. If a machining operation, like profiling, skimmed off previous markings, the critical ones were reapplied along with the next inspector's mark. That way, if the "job card" in a box of unfinished barrels went missing, the inspectors could fairly quickly work out to what stage they had been machined.

And almost all churned out on odd looking, purpose-built machines, driven by overhead belts, all initially powered by steam.

And then there are the Lithgow rifles that shuffled between variants.

Start building Mk111s, and marked as such, then as the war gets more demanding, drop all of the "fruit" and make Mk111* variants. Did it matter that they had a room full of finished Mk111 bodies, complete with the slot for the cut-off? Nope. Just leave those bits off and maybe fit a fore-end that covered the slot, or maybe not. Bash a "*" after the "lll" on the stock ferrule side and away you go.

After the shooting stopped, things got very slow. The system reverted to the "proper" Mk 111 variant. So, if they had a bunch of bodies with the cut-off machining and a * stamped on them, they had to have the * cancelled.

Volley sights? What is the latest date seen on a genuine, "un-restored" Lithgow mk111? Supplementary question: Did Lithgow make differently graduated dial plates for Mk6 and, after the "restoration", Mk7 ammo? I have never seen the dial drawing(s), just those for the pointer and the rear aperture.

The Brits also had to deal with all this caper, plus a plethora of upgraded vintage rifles with multiple stars stamped on them, all whilst trying to put a new rifle into production, on a fairly constrained budget.