Happened upon an interesting No4 last weekend.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tbonesmith

That barrel looks for all the world to me to be a Lithgow heavy profile 7.62 No4 barrel, and those scopes were all over the place here years ago and the full bore community had stacks of them. The rifle has been a range/full bore rifle, because that hole in the wrist is for fitting a parker hale 5A rear sight or a central plate for No1Mk3. All I'm saying is that I don't immediately discount that it was put together at Lithgow. All those parts were here and available and No32's were not in any quantity.

On the point of machine/pantograph numbering, the serial numbers for scopes on the Lithgow HTs were all hand engraved with a scratch awl.

...and I completely agree about the eye relief of the scope rendering it thoroughly impractical for use... Interesting anyway.

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T-Bone we know that Lithgow had a surplus of Pat18 scopes, and at the time of this rifle they where still using the HT rifle with a Pat 18 scope so why change to another scope when we did not have the No32 scopes and they are heavier than the Pat 18 scope.

I think it is early to write this one off, as Son says he has more photos to come, we all agree you can never say never. I have a Russian PE sniper made by Izy dated 1936 and they are on record in saying that izy never produced snipers between 1928 - 1942 since I posted that rifle and had interest like this thread where people said no because it is not possible according to the records and others said maybe it turns out it is a very rare rifle. since then another 1936 Izy has been found in and two 1937 PEM snipers made by izy have been found. i guess we should remember that you can never say never.

The eye relief is as Peter says very close to giving someone a permanent ring around their eye, however if it was a trial then maybe that was not as important as seeing the rifle working. Not sure i am not an expert on these things only giving a possible scenario.

If it is a fake somebody had a lot of time and must have loved stamping things as seems like it has a lot of work when most fakes have only enough done to put it out as a fake, again only thinking out loud?????? if you also think about this way normally a rifle is faked to represent something that is already out there for example a NO4 T with repro mounts and a repro scope roughed up a little to looked aged but the idea is that they are trying to replicate something already in existence. This rifle looks like something really different so what are they faking against??? can anyone tell me if something like this has ever been seen before so we can determine whether this is a fake that maybe built on information was written in a book somewhere or someone had heard of something like this or seen a similiar rifle as i have not seen one like this. To many marks on it so far for someone just to build it as a range rifle why would they mark it like that, and that they would mark up a NO4 rifle??? with Lithgow marks and not say a No 1 MKIII with some special marks on it. It seems to me that there is more to this rifle, as T-Bone has said in an earlier post he has seen lithgow rifles in the past with similar markings maybe this needs to be investigated?

The first thing that struck me was (and a few have commented on it) why use early 1900 scope technology on a 1940,s rifle when the 1940's scope technology was available, not only that if it was an original 4T then it just doesn't make sense to remove the pads and reinstall some mount base's ?????


Without commenting on the authenticity of this rifle I note that this is exactly what they did when they were building Lithgow HTs in 1945...putting pattern 1918 scopes on them!

Gents.... ok, firstly I do not own the rifle, have no vested interest in the rifle other than being given to opportunity to serve it up here for a round table discussion. As I said, the owner is looking to find out one way or the other... his world does not revolve around this rifle being "real".


Now, stopping short of directly defending the rifle as being "real" there have been a few comments made that maybe should not have any bearing on the outcome. Will start with the obvious (to me...) eye relief..... (with the greatest respect here, Peter)
" The eye relief of an optical instrument (such as a telescope, a microscope, or binoculars) is the distance from the last surface of an eyepiece at which the user's eye can obtain the full viewing angle. If a viewer's eye is outside this distance, a reduced field of view will be obtained."
The eye relief does not change, but the scope position or length of pull is altered so an individual can achieve a comfortable shooting position at the correct eye relief.... If I fired the rifle in question, it would not hit me at all, my eye would be the correct distance from the scope, it may be uncomfortable to fire, but would not hit me. Why make the rifle like this? Maybe to fire it from an Enfield Rest and see if the scope could handle 1000 T65 rounds... Maybe the whole thing was set up to test the scope for some other purpose?

On the scope itself.... it isn't an Australian scope, it is a PP Co Patt18 scope! So no, there were not "plenty of these laying about for target shooters"

Post WW11 Lithgow experimented with lots of weird and wonderful creations... Anyone ever seen a Johnson rifle set up with modified Lithgow HT bases for a AOC Patt18 scope? I have personally handled two. Wonder why they were playing with a mid forties semi auto and a scope design from the 1900's? To see if it would work! They had plenty of the scopes... So why wouldn't Lithgow go one step further and look at the scope on a 7.62....

There are more markings coming to light with the next lot of pics (just received). Almost every part seems to have a broad arrow with the "E combined with the F and D to make one letter stamp" used by Enfield and the number 12.... Also, a lot of the rifle has the X18300 marking too... As on the marking disc, I think every other mark was there first, and the X18300 was added later... Do any othe EFD experimentals have a butt disc?

I am wondering if a lot of whats been done here wasn't done in England (converted to T65 ammo in 1955 and then used for L8 experiments and later L42E experiments) before being the guinea pig once again for an experiment concerning the scope... Might it have been sent to Australia as T65 converted rifle that had been used in previous experiments?

All wild conjecture, I know... but before you judge too harshly, Could it have been marked on the left side of the receiver when it got here with enough info to distinguish what it was (for Lithgow's purposes), an experimental rifle used in L8 and /or L42 developement, converted for the T65 cartridge in 1956.

More pics soon hopefully, just resizing some....

Just on the SAF markings... compare with these.... probably about 20 years apart

Attachment 50220

Seems like an awful lot of effort to go to for a home project, and that's the last I'll say on it, I'm not going to pretend I have the knowledge to make an informed argument.

I've seen stranger things in my years though than this.

Here's some more pics....

Attachment 50226Attachment 50227Attachment 50228Attachment 50229Attachment 50230Attachment 50231Attachment 50232Attachment 50233

And another lot...

Attachment 50235Attachment 50234Attachment 50236Attachment 50237Attachment 50238Attachment 50239Attachment 50240Attachment 50241

And the last of them... the owner can't be accused of hiding anything, that's for sure. One of the most comprehensive sets of markings pics I've seen!
He has asked me to strip the rifle completely some time soon just in case there are markings yet uncovered.

Attachment 50243Attachment 50242Attachment 50244Attachment 50245

Interesting thread so thanks for that Son. Nothing of any use to add - seems to me though that the Aussie experts who know everything there is to know about Lithgow aren't necessarily put off by the markings...

What we need is a Lithgow worker who was around during that era.

To be really honest Prinz, we don't even need that. It's a mishmash of number and letter stamps from someone who is laughing his bollo........... er.........., laughing his socks off at this very moment. There is some comment about that X- serial number. But look at it....... the figure 8 has been put on the engraving plate upside down. Now engraving machine operators might not be the brightest lights in the box but.......

I take Sons words on board pondering on whether this could be a test bed for that - or a similar - telescope to see how recoil would affect it. But surely, one or two of the blokes at the D&D office at Lithgow would just say words to the effect '............ hang on chaps....., instead of all this palava, making a rifle that you can't ever use again, why don't we just do what every pommy Armourer/Instrument Techy has been doing every time he has repaired a telescope since 19xx that has been tested for 'hold and fastness'. And that's put it onto a slave rifle, and just set the recoil on the Enfield Rest to fxxxxxx hard and fire 2 rounds. If it holds (for internal fastness) then that's surely good enough. And pretty damn simple too! That Pete Laidlers son used to go in on Saturdays with his dad just to test fire L42's and rebuilt sights and night sights. That's just my take on things.

As a matter of interest, there was a proposal to incorporate the simple Patt18 sliding erector system in the No32 telescope in the interests if simplicity. What killed the idea wasn't that it would/could slip, but the fact that the snipers wanted waterproof telescopes and you'd never make that arrangement waterproof. They got the simplified and cheaper scope (the Mk3) that was relatively waterproofable to boot

Does that action say Regulated by Fultons? Surely no Experimental or trial rifle would have gone to Fultons for work.

If they wanted to trial the sight, why not put a 7.62mm barrel on an existing No.1 Sniper.

They did produce trial 7.62mm No.1 rifles in 1958 so they weren't fully aware of any issues with the idea until that point.

Even the markings in the latest selection of photos look off, the EFD logos look skewed and not precise like we normally see. The WD arrows have the tail off to one side.