New to me 1942 Long Branch No 4 MkI* - Some questions

[greendoh]

I just picked up a 1942 Long Branch 17L3XXX and had a few questions.

Some history on the rifle - it was purchased from PS Militaria and is one of the Indian refurbs they've been selling lately. It is somewhat of a frankenbeast given the fact that it has the ishapore screw and a mish mash of parts. The rifle is also extremely dirty - a mixture of cosmo/grease, dust, dirt and a few bug carcasses.

I'm somewhat taking this on as a project to restore the rifle to its former glory. This isn't a money making thing, and the rifle will never be a collector, I just want to restore her to somewhere closer to how she should have been - I'm not talking about sanding or staining, but replacing parts with original LB parts.

The receiver, barrel, trigger guard, bolt body, cocking piece (a button style cocking piece) and rear barrel band are all marked with the LB marking. The reciever is marked with a * next to the barrel, but the bore does appear to be in good shape.

Now for the mix matching parts - the trigger is savage, the bolt head is savage, the front band is savage, the butt stock is Savage, and the sight guard is from packistan - POF. My plan is to replace most of these parts with LB parts. Again, not a money making venture here, not trying to build a collectible, just a labour of love.

the sight is a "MKIII" style stamped site, but it is marked with a MKII at the top of the sight, both front and back. Not sure if that is normal? There don't appear to be any other markings, but I know it's not the proper site (milled MKI with LB markings). I plan on replacing this, but any thoughts on what kind of sight it would be?

The magazine has me somewhat stumped. There is a clear Savage marking on it, but the serial number matches the bolt & reciever (it is pretty poorly stamped), and there appears to be a B? or is it a LB? or is it just a 3? Any thoughts?



Now the wood.. other than the butt stock, I can't find any markings on the wood with two exceptions - the number 18 is stamped on the inside of the forestock, and the last four digits of the serial number are stamped on the outside of the stock, near the cap towards the muzzle end of the rifle.

The various scrapes and gouges on the wood match up - ie. a scrape on the forestock will continue onto the rear handguard / front handguard. What should I be looking for insofar as markings to confirm that this is 'original' wood?

The last thing I have noticed is that the tip of the barrel, the front sight guard, the stock caps and the front band all have some amount of flaking on the finish. Some of these parts are going to be replaced, but given the the barrel has a decent bore and an LB mark, I'd like to keep it.



I know I'll probably lose some purists here, but what can I do to refinish this? It's really just the tip shown in the picture that I'm looking at, and really, it's as much about protecting the metal as it is aesthetics.

Thanks for reading!

Information

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[Peter Laidler]

Get all of the steel parts bead blasted, phosphated and repainted with a tough spirit based oven bake paint. Get rid of the big screw through the fore-end as per the detail shown in an earlier thread and finish the wood with a high degree of care. Now assemble the rifle carefully making sure that there's lashings of grease between the internal wood and the steel parts.

There........... Now you have a refurbished rifle as it would have been refurbished and looked after by hard working Armourers of any nation. This is how it would have seen its extensive worldwide service of which it can be justifiably proud.

On the other hand you could fit all the parts you mention, varnish the wood, blue the steel etc etc and have something like a car at concourse show or young but unreal girl on the catwalk or dare I say it, a yorkie dog with coffieured fur and a pink ribbon on its head. They LOOK good but bear no sebelance to anything that's ever been driven on the road or the attractive girl you see walking down the pavement. It's really up to you but I know what I prefer

[rgg_7]

Greendoh....great seeing you take on a project like this. Yes it can be restored. you mag is "LB" mad and "S" issued...not uncommon so I would keep that. bolt can be restored. Take all the metal bits off the rifle that aren't LB, and replace with correct ones. Look for a very good ser of LB wood. Very rewarding to do this. i got most of the correct parts so you can send me a list to my email rgg_7@hotmail.com. Looks like your in Canada which makes it easier to get the work done. Ron