Rear sight guards for no1mk3 query

[RJW NZ]

Sorry I've been all over these posts just now, I've been head down and *** up for weeks and I can relax a bit ... so where else do I go on a rainy day but right here ... wouldn't have it any other way.

Re rear sight guards for the no1mk3; the right side of them has an odd double step up and out in the metal to make room for fingers to work the windage adjustable knob. When the windage business was done away with, did the sight guard lose some of those step outs seeing as that room for fingers was no longer required?
I'm restoring a project and am wondering if I remember seeing some sight guards that look narrower from others, or if I just imagined it? And on that related idea, about when did they stop getting made with the lightening recess? WW1 wartime expediency circa 1915 perhaps?

thanks

Information

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[Steve H. in N.Y.]

I looked at my rifles and the only ones with the narrow guards are Indian made. Even dispersal rifles and WWII Lithgows have the step. Though it served no purpose on later rifles it probably wasn't worth changing the tooling to make narrow guards....except at Ishapore?

[Son]

Not long ago been through the quest to find when the lightening cuts on the sight protectors were deleted from Lithgow rifles. IIRC they were stopped in 1916. As there are quite a few 1917 rifles carrying the lightened "ears", it would be safe to say that all stocks of the old type were allowed to be used up in production. Later on, any part found to be still servicable when a rifle was stripped for FTR could have been re-used too.

The narrow guards are Indian made as Steve said. Not sure on when they came into being, but it may have been the same time as a few other production expediencies were introduced in India like the square eared nosecaps.

[krinko]

Here's a photo of my 1947 Ishapore, which I believe to be unmolested. The nosecaap is still the standard design, but the sight protector is the narrow type.
The 1941 Ishapore retains the bump-out for the missing windage knob.
In the rifles I own, the squared-off nosecap shows up in 1950, along with the thicker triggerguard bow and the square footed charger guide.
Also, somewhere between '41 and '47 RFI stopped milling a flat on top of the receiver ring.
-----krinko

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