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You can nip that story in the bud now Jona. There were no Armourers in the Royal Engineers either. And if REAL Armourers weren't even allowed to stamp the bodyside, (that part of the rifle could only be marked with an engraving cutter) you can be rest assured that nobody would tell us to grind a part of it away. We have very probably the most comprehensive archive of permissable modifications to Service rifles here at the Small Arms School, and grinding out he US Property mark isn't included in it.
Thunderbox has hit the nail on the head - albeit a bit more diplomatically than me!
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This seemed like the right place: was going through some old actions today running them through the ultrasonic cleaner and found this one: 1943 Savage No.4 Mk.I* with Canadian Broad Arrow marks and the U.S. Property barred out. Presumably this was a rifle issued to Canadian troops overseas from British stores and presumably the striking out of the markings was done in Canadian service as well.
Until it came out of the cleaner this was a filthy, stripped barrelled receiver that hadn't been anywhere much for at least 50 years, so I think that's pretty good provenance.
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And...follows what Peter always told us about nothing being removed, only linished so it can be seen after for record.
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Bruce Canfield recently answered a reader's write in question about them in the April issue of American Rifleman magazine. Perpetrating the mythology again that "a few thousand" were unmarked at the beginning of production. Anyone in doubt of the facts here need only go back and read Paul's post #7 of this thread. That pretty much says it all. Rob's body in post #42 also adds a lot of information because if a marking or serial number were changed as per regulations in British and Commonwealth workshops, that is exactly how it was supposed to be done using a file or proper cancellation stamp.
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Yep, I suspect the end of a chisel was at times one of the tools used...........
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Interesting note.
I have a 1L series Long Branch and two 5C series Savage rifles. All three have South African property marks.
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I bought 400 South African owned No.4's of various manufacture and variation as imported by Interarms in Alexandria, Virginia in 1994. There were several early Savage and a very few Long Branch rifles included in the shipment but the majority were post WWII ROF Fazakerly manufacture. I kept a 5Cxxxx Savage and an 18Cxxxx Long Branch from the load. They were thrown around a bit and sport lots of handling marks but are both very nice original rifles overall.
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I have Savage 69C5580 No US Property Marks. Gun is mint
I have Savage 94C4392 with US Property Marks Gun is also mint
No one ground off the Markings on 69C
Both have the same light colour grey type finish
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Here's my early Savage 1942 Mk1 SKN rifle.
List engineering clearly removed the US PROPERTY markings to place the SKN markings
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I’d love to see some pics of the 69C Savage can14.
