DCRA No.4 Rifles

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Originally Posted by Badger

Check the MKL for an example and more info on DCRA rifles... ;)

http://photos.imageevent.com/badgerd...20_Medium_.JPG(Click PIC to Enlarge)http://photos.imageevent.com/badgerd...20_Medium_.JPG

1949 C No.4 Mk1* Long Branch (Early DCRA Rifle) (click here)

Regards,
Doug

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Just a note regarding Badger's DCRA example, the "C inside the oval", and the "5G" are both remnants of its previous life as a 303 target rifle and have nothing to do with the 7.62 DCRA conversion.

And there are a surprisingly large number of No4Mk2 rifles which were converted to 7.62 DCRA by CAL.

I would say that I have seen every No4 action (MkI, MkI*, Mk2, MkI/2, MkI/3) & manufacturer (Savage, Long Branch, Fazackerly, Maltby & BSA) except an Enfield trials rifle converted to 7.62 for the DCRA.

The CAL barrels used on the target shooting conversions did not have bayonet lugs. There are CAL 7.62x51 barrels with lugs. CAL made barrels for the British L8 rifles.

Canons Delcour in Belgium were originally asked to contract but were said to be useless at every stage. Sterling also initially jumped on the Canons bandwaggon for their conversions but it was the same problems again. Canada had already been producing them so I suppose it made sense. But you can't defeat the laws of physics - or harmonics in this case - and no matter what you do, 7.62mm is barrel length critical. And No4 barrel length ain't it!

The absence of bayonet lugs did crop up and there were some attempts to adapt the L1A1 bayonet. A sort of attempt exists at Warminster but while it might have worked for ceremonial duties, I can't imagine it working in real life.

Most or all of the DCRA rifles have the marks from a hardness tester on the receiver and under the bolt handle IIRC. I was told that they were also magna-fluxed for cracks, but though the source is very credible, that's all the evidence I've seen.

A local machinist and gunsmith now deceased assured me several times that the barrels were actually made by Douglas for SAL. He named the former SAL employee who he said told him this, but unfortunately I didn't record the name at the time.

The hardness test marks will have to be where it was hardness tested - on the locking shoulders, the only two places that the body is hardened. These will barely show of course BUT there might be an indicator mark elsewhere to show that the hardness test was done at some time.

The tester marks were on the underside near the front guard screw boss. Presumably done to assess the metallurgy of the receivers as far as a hardness test does that. As I recall there were two or three marks on those I've seen.

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The results of hardness test may be utilized as:-
1- Similar material may be graded according to hardness and a particular grade as indicated by a hardness test may be specified for some services.
It should be observed that a hardness number can not be utilized directly in design or analysis as can tensile strength for example.
2- The quality level of materials or products may be checked or controlled by hardness test.
They may be applied to determine the uniformity of samples of metals, or the uniformity of results of some heat treatment or case hardening.
3- By establishing a correlation between hardness number and some other desired properties, eg: tensile strength. Simple hardness test may serve to control the uniformity of the tensile strength and to indicate rapidly whether more complete tests are warranted.

Read more: Metallurgy Material Engineering: Hardness Tests

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