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Is there a line in the sand when No4 Mk2's first began to come out with those heavier/larger wood dimensions that I see on the 1955 year?
I have a couple of No4 Mk1/2's that are circa 1950 and they're the old No4 profile, so I was curious when the change came.
The next question after buying a mk2 will be to locate an extra wood set for it, that'll be a challenge I tink.
There are some No.4 Mk2 wood sets available on Epay rightnow. I just bought one and it is beautiful - almost black in fact so dark I thought it had been painted and I'm wondering if it;s even wlanut. I got one with a long buttstock and was made in 1957 or at leats is stamped 1957 on the forearm. check out the picture of the sad No.4 Mk1/2 project i posted on another thread and you'll see why it was needed.
I bought one of those black wood sets a while back for a No4 mk1 and it is probably the best I've ever seen. I wish I was cashed up so I could stock up a few, no pun intended, lol.
I've been through a selection of nhew and used 50's fore-ends and thered seems to be a mix of 'normal' and 'fuller' fore-ends among them including a 1957 'normal' fore-end without the cut-off block recess that is very dark wood. I took it down to Steve the old chippie (that's Army slang for a carpenter.....) and he says that while it's dark, it's not walnot. However, he did qualify that by saying that it's not walnut as he knows and recognises walnut. American 'black' walnut maybe (are we allowed to say black american anything now I wonder.........) but if it is, it would seem an awful waste of money importing it into the UK in the 50's when money was as tight as my dads wallet!
Have you got any ideas as to what it is TBone?
As for the 'normal and 'full' woodwork, I would think that it's all to do with the machine setters. These were the semi skilled staff who, well, set the machines! From the Armourers point of view, some fore-ends and handguards, (but not butts as I recall) were very shallow and there was hardly enough meat on them to scrape down the blemishes, especially the well used ones, especially at the rear near the butt socket and the rear fore-end strap and along the sides of the trigger guard. When spares were short we had to patch the edge of the fore-end along the side of the trigger guard AND peg it too........ phew, that was always a tricky job for a crap Armourer like me
Are you sure it's not the Turkish walnut replacement wood made for Pakistani production? It was available a few years back for both the Mk.1 and Mk.2. I had a few sets and it cleaned up beautifully.
Sound like the Turkish ones to me. I too got a couple from the USA a while ago and it looked real rough, but when I wiped it down with steel wool dipped in BLO , like Brian I found it was really beautiful timber in perfect condition. I put one together for a guy, but when I put the other together for myself I'll spokeshave and plane the bulky front guard down to the "rest of the world profile", as I think it ugly, and it just about obscures the foresight it sits so high.
I always associate Turkish walnut with the beautifully patterned walnut found on H&H shotguns. Can we assume that there is a cheap Turkish walnut too?
The dark no-cutoff block fore-end me and the chippie commented on was a F57 made
The Turkish walnut forends were marked P/58. I don't think there's such a thing as cheap Turkish walnut. Some of the forends were every bit as nice as the wood found on fancy shotguns. I kept a set in case I ever get a butchered Mk.2 through here. Like tbonesmith above, the front handguards are very bulky and would need planing down to taste.
That's what I got. Stamped P 58 - not 57 as I thought. So haveing a turkish walnut stock set makes this restroation all teh more difficult - I'll really have to be careful about bodging it up now.