Yellow tape with " 0 " on barrel above chamber. What does it mean?

[Swampdonkey]

Hello everyone,

I have a well used No4 Mk2 FAZ rifle, serial # in the PF32 range, that has a piece of yellow marking tape with a " 0 " printed on it. The tape is located on the barrel over the chamber, underneath the rear hangaurd. Does any one know what this means?

Thank you.

Swampdonkey

Information

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[Brian B]

Does the rifle have a "0" length bolt head?

Just a thought.

Brian B

[Swampdonkey]

Hi Brian B,

The rifle has a #3 bolthead installed. It could use a #4 but I know what the chances of finding one are. I did a search before I posted and found one other fellow asking the same thing regarding the tape but that part of the question was never answered.

I hope that some one here might be able shed some light on what it means.

Thank you.

Swampdonkey

[Peter Laidler]

What makes you think that you need a No4 bolthead Swampy? In practice, beyond the walls of some asian factory, there's no such thing. There is of course but if a rifle needs a bolt head beyond 3, then you need to try a new bolt body.

There are many threads on this forum but knowing the vagaries of bolt head sizes, then you could find that it will CHS on a 2!

Before you go looking for a longer bolthead I'd make sure that your rifle CHS's using the correct, calibrated gauges

Ah, yes.............., the tape with the 0 on it. Good question, but I don't have a clue either! But if it's just some sort of sticky tape, then you can safely say that it's not something that the civilised world would entertain because after the first 3 rounds, it'd be a sticky mess and after 10 rounds, it'd have melted

[Swampdonkey]

Thank you for your post Peter.

I am not too concerned about the tape, just curious. It has been there for awhile as its quite brittle and could eaisily be flaked off with my finger nail. I'll try to track down a digital camera and get a picture posted.

As for the bolt head, my comment about the #4 bolt head was more of a whishful thought on my part. I have used the rifle and although accurate, the brass is stretching quite a bit, much more than any of the other Enfields I have. I have not been able to use a CHS gauge yet. I am looking for one but most of the ones advertised are not the 0.074" gauge.

Thank you.

Swampdonkey

[gsimmons]

Talk to Brian at BDL Ltd. in SC about the gauges.

[muffett.2008]

Maybe this is the new age yellow paint.
('he says, tongue in cheek.)

[Surpmil]

Sounds like either a covert ownership mark that no one else would guess was one; which would be the best kind. Or something a target shooter/gunsmith or a wholesaler might use to mark a barrel as being of a certain quality or condition. I've seen lots of bits of tape and paper around barrels in people's rafters. Saves looking down dozens of barrels when you want one for a certain job.

[flying pig]

What brand cartridges do you shoot? They have different rim thickness. Eg with my LE's PRVI will not stretch cases and federal/winchester/remmington will.

*Edit: woops my bad I didn't take into account that you said this rifle stretched them more than your others. I bet u already knew about the rim thickness thing.

[Frederick303]

Well, I might get myself in trouble with the real experts, but I have seen two other rifles with this small white/yellow tape with the zeo on it ubove the chamber (but under the handguard). Both were well used No 2 MK II rifles that came out of UK surplus sales. One was a 56 FTR rifle the other was a 57 FTR, both of which were Fazkerley. Both had well worn but not abused barrels, one had eviidence that it had a Parker-Hale 5c or a TZ 4/47 sight on it at one time. Both appeared to be former cadet rifles.

I expect, based on this very limited small that it has to do with Cadet rifle inspection. That is entirely a guess based on a sample size of 2 (though yours makes 3).