Help Identify this Number 4 Mk. 2

[davidwrankin]

It says "FTR 195?"

Sorry, should have made a circle:

Attachment 110394

There is some kind of mark in the finish in that area. It's clearer in person, but still not enough to tell anything definite. I may just be seeing things at this point...


In the same private message, you also asked me about the markings out at the muzzle. Those are the IO Inc importer marks; the only thing interesting is that the importer calls the gun a No 4 Mk 1, which it obviously is not.

To catch up on some other replies I was going to make last night, but wasn't able to hit send on before bed:

Kentucky I thought was Scots-Irish territory, but I see on looking it was over 50% English; speaking of which you must have enjoyed "The Story of English" on PBS.

My family can trace the Rankins to the Mairns Parish in the Paisley area of Scotland back to at least 1754; my ancestor was the first born and "son natural" (a polite way of saying "out of wedlock"... oops) of Arthur and Elspah/Elizabeth Bryson (records are gone before that). It was Milady who was of general English stock (albeit lower-class English stock) from eastern Kentucky.

I need to watch The Story of English still. I personally like the analogy that each major change in English arises when English meets another new language and takes it into a back alley to beat it up for its lunch money and some favorite trinket or piece of clothing. And let's not even start trying to figure out the Great Vowel Shift....

Would be worth checking the fit of the butt in the socket BTW.

I'm lucky I don't have to replace the stock to shoot the gun. When the bolt is the least bit loose, the stock wobbles. When you're tightening the bolt, the stock thrashes from side to side like a drunken sailor. The fit is acceptable only when the bolt is 100% tight; the stock is straight, true, and only a small gap (paper thickness to knife blade width) remains between the receiver and the stock. I also need to acquire a bolt washer and lock washer for the buttstock bolt (and see if I can find the leather bottle protector, not sure where I put it....).

The butt is also a Short, and I need a Long. I'll look to buy a Long for shooting purposes, and put the Short in the closet for storage.

If it is a Mk2 then it would be an early 50's rifle (but the serial number does not stack up with that date) and it must have had a very hard life to require an FTR in '53

Fazakerley
BSA (FTR in 1953)
Sold to India and scrubbed & new number during re-fit to make it a grenade rifle, eventually sold out of service
Arrived in the USA

You forgot the side-trip to Ethiopia, if RTI can be trusted at all.

I just got Stratton's book on No 4s and No 5s, and the pictures in it helped me a lot to identify the various variations on the receivers/bodies. I even called in the resident expert: my daughter is a metal sculpture
student at the University of Kentucky, and a really good welder/forger/metal worker. The trigger mounting bracket is a solid piece with the rest of the receiver, and not brazed or welded on. The gun is a Mk. 2.

Could BSA have built A1828 in the 1953s FTR? Perhaps they grabbed a spare Fazakerley 51 body, a new barrel, and random furniture parts laying around, and put Frankenstein's monster together. I was going to even speculate that the bolt might be the original part, but it would seem silly that a 1942 Shirley bolt could survive if the receiver did not. Alternately, BSA could have picked the serial number A1828 because they had just parted the original A1828 out.

If that's not likely, then it was built in 51, and needed an FTR by 53 (or BSA wanted the money for an FTR, and did it anway...).

Either way, the rest of the history is :

• It heads to India post-FTR
• India has it some time, then FTRs it again and converts it to support the Rifle Grenade
• They eventually muster it out of service, and it gets shipped to Ethiopia
• It definitely gets shot in Ethiopia (I cleaned a LOT of fouling and copper out of that barrel)
• Eventually RTI rescues it from the warehouse in Ethiopia
• Number One Son pays too much money, and I have it now....