Savage No4 Mk1, 1942 dated SKN rife.

Afternoon all,

I have had a full length SKN instructional rifle sat at the back of my gun cabinet for a couple of years now, waiting it's turn for restoration.

I finally got round to it yesterday. It came to me in poor condition, rusty with many missing parts, front sight block, swivels etc.

The woodwork was dreadful, black with filth and dinged and dented.

It had been used as an instruction aid by a TA unit back in the 1960's I believe and after being surplussed,it had been at the back of someone's garage for over 30 years before I rescued it.

It's an early 1942 Savage made No4 Mk1 (not a later Mk1*), Faz FTR'd and fitted with a Faz 1948 dated barrel.

After cleaning I noticed it had '* (f) FTR' , so no FTR date for some reason.

So I wonder if it had been refurbished at Fazakerley, then subsequently failed inspection and ended up at List Engineering for conversion to SKN status?

Pictures posted in the week, it's quite an interesting piece.

List only did the shorties. Full length ones were usually Armourers or apprentices trade test pieces, done at training schools, Base workshops or factories. They were deemed to be scrap following their one way trip and therefore scrapped on-site after being marked or just disposed of

Evening Peter, this is an SKN marked example, (SKN 721) I guess an armourer back in the day must have fitted and slotted a full length barrel and stocked her up with the viewing cut outs for training purposes.

The barrel,(1948 Faz) in this case has a 5 inch slot on the left hand side, starting in the last inch the chamber. It's been plugged with weld forward of the cut channel.

Evening all,

Please find attached some images of my SKN cutaway No4, as Peter said List only carried out the short action instructional actions, so I would guess this example must have been re-barrelled with a worn out full length barrel (in this case Faz 48 dated)

Its a reasonably early production Savage No4 Mk1, the work has been carried out to a reasonably high standard, not as neat as some I have seen, but still rather nice. Once I managed to get the missing parts together and refurbish everything (the stock was a real mess) its come up rather well, ready to hang on the wall in my gun room.

As previously described, as well as the usual pattern SKN mods, the barrels been slotted and a rods been welded in the bore in front of the slot, the bolt heads been cut back and the FP holes been counterbored and welded up, the bolt bodies been weakened via a slot.

It can't get more deactivated than this!

Looks good John, did you get any before pics ? after many years I'm just able to see the back of my cabinet, more projects and restorations than you could shake a stick at.........

Morning Geoff,

I will dig the before pics out mate, anyone have any idea regarding the FTR markings, instead of a re-work date, it appears to have F (F) FTR , with the first F star'd out ??

Could this mean it went through FTR, only to fail inspection for some reason at Fazakerley?