White paint on no.4 butt stock

Anyone out there want to venture a guess as to the significance of the white paint top rear of the butt stock I have pictured. There is no sign of paint anywhere else on the rifle, just where the butt stock has been damaged at some point in the last 71 years since manufacture at Long Branch. I assume it is to denote the damaged section, but perhaps someone out there has a better explanation for it. Could it have been to mark the damaged section for a future repair by an armourer? Perhaps its something peculiar to NZ? For what its worth its an 'earlyish' (4L series Long Branch) that is N/|\Z marked.

Its almost certainly a rack-marking system, designed to make the butt of the rifle more visible - and thus easier to count - in a gloomy low-light armoury. I've seen this done on L1A1s, both in an RN armoury, and in an Army unit in Germany.

When you have to try and count six hundred dark coloured weapons layered in horizontal racks, lit only by a few bulbs, a white paint system can save your sanity!

Or could it be a marker to the Arms storeman to remind him where it'd broke along with the other rifles he'll take to the Armourers shop next time he's going over there. They normally wander over with a few things at about coffee-break time and whyle away an hour discussing something of great political importance in the middle-east or just the world in general......, like their latest conquest or the latest rumour going like wildfire through the Company......... You know the sort of thing!

And a butt patch would be a unit repair done on a 'when we're doing a few others' basis

Curious, I have a Long Branch that has a repair in exactly the same place, only repair was done with very light wood, looks almost identical to the painted section on the rifle shown.

Heel and toe patches were everyday bread and butter to Armourers. You can tell whether a REAL armourer has done it as it'll be dovetailed/undercut in place and held secure by two oak dowels.