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I do not have photos yet, but the rifle, apart from some slight handling dings, is pristine. The bore is mirror-like, and the bolt face looks untouched. There are no import marks, so I do not have a clue how and when this rifle got into the US. I will post pics in a few days (after I have recovered sufficiently after a surgery). This rifle is almost worthy of going in the knowledge library as an example of NZ markings. I am now off to drool over the rifle, but I will wear a bib.
:D OK ready for the photos when you can. Oh, get well fast :wave:
I have a New Zealand marked Long Branch as well. I am mostly a Mauser guy but when I found this No.4 in a pawnshop it was too beautiful to pass up and once I noticed the NZ I had to have her. Turns out there was a Canadian oiler in the butt too! :dancingbanana:
From what I have seen and heard, the NZ rifles are almost always in great shape and apparently were kept as rear echelon weapons since the NZ army prefered the No.I Mk.III and already had them in wide circulation. This is, however, only what I have heard and I find information rather hard to come by on these rifles.
Tried to take photos, but I am shaking too much post anesthesia (one of my typical reactions, doesn't last more than a day) and the pictures are blurry.
No oiler in the buttstock, but it did come with a stiff as anything 1942 Canadian-marked sling. I looked at the wear surfaces (lugs, contact areas on cocking piece, extractor, along sides of bolt and in the receiver, etc) and it is minimal to non-existent. Even the wood work still has that just machined feel to it. Not one single screw has been buggered with, but that just means that anyone stripping this rifle down was very, VERY careful lol. I looked again for any import marks that may be visible without stripping the rifle down (even used a magnifying glass) and there are none.
I think I did well. Although I am a shooter more than a collector (and I know all the arguments from boths sides of the fence), I really am having to think hard about taking this one to the range - it is just too gorgeous lol.
Sounds like you did well Spinecracker. NZ Enfields of any description can't be too common.
Hope you get over your surgery quickly.
I got a couple NZ marked No4's and the ones I've seen have been in very good order. I'll post some pics on a new thread
One question. What type of oiler would be correct for a WW2 Long Branch? One of the black/brown plastic ones, brass, etc? Would there be any particular markings?
I second that .... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by xa-coupe
Hope your recovery is quick and successful ... :super:
Regards,
Doug
Thanks guys. It has been 12 hours and I still have a big numb patch around the incision, and I am still feeling the effects of the general anesthesia (I'm not taking any pain meds until I stop feeling lightheaded, off balance and nauseated lol), so I'm laying off the pain meds until I get the ok. Still, this means that I am up at 5am looking at my new rifle, so I am not complaining lol.
As promised. 1 or 2 are a little blurry, but I will sort out better ones later.
http://s1016.photobucket.com/albums/...Long%20Branch/
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...942LBNZ1-1.jpg
Very nice. Congratulations.
What type of oiler would be correct for a WW2 Long Branch? One of the black/brown plastic ones, brass, etc? Would there be any particular markings?
SpineCracker, Very nice, very similar to mine. Serial no 20L1506 but unable to confirm it is NZ.
Myles
Any oil bottle will do. Brown, black, it really doesn't matter. i may have a NZ marked one left if interested. Let me know and i'll check.
In the past, KimW and others including me have put a load of info onto this and the old Jouster site about these rifles so I'm not going to duplicate what's already been said but while I was in NZ we had No4's that had a NZ mark and number on the bottom left hand side of the butt socket. I was at a big Ordnance Depot at Ngaruawahia and there were still unopened crates of brand new rifles in Ordnance there. Another Armourer Robbie Robertson broke one open prior to disposal of the rifles and they were rusted into solid lumps of virtually unidentifiable lumps of steel. This wasn't unusual as some of them had come over as deck cargo during the war. KimW also remembered these sealed crates. Alas, they've got to be good to keep the sea out!
The rifles on issue in NZ were always in good condition, especially those in our neck of the woods
Bearclaw, have you posted photos of the markings on your rifle at this forum? If these guys can't work it out, it can't be worked out lol.
Brian, if you do have a NZ-marked oil bottle, I would be interested in knowing how much it would cost. I thought that any oiler might do very well, but I just wanted to check. I have just picked up a very good condition LB-marked bayonet and scabbard, and I might have found a Canadian-marked breech cover dated 1942 that ended up in New Zealand. I do not believe in fate, but....
I did find the following website discussing canadian oilers:
http://www.enfield-stuff.com/oilers/...ers_Canada.htm
Mr. Laidler, I have been looking through your previous posts on this subject. I will repeat the exercise when I am not on Vicodin and have a chance of actually remembering some of the invaluable information you have provided :)
Hello
I feel that I must add a comment here as I live in New Zealand and a lot of NZ marked rifles have pasted thought my hands, And I have never seen a rifle that is marked in the way they seem to be in the USA all the rifles I have seen here and are in my collection are stamped on the left hand butt socket with a "rack number" and N^Z or N^ZD.
Not one rifle have I seen in NZ that are engraved as on your rifle (must be a USA thing?).
I may be wrong but I have seen hundreds of rifles in NZ and have been collecting for years and feel pretty qualified to comment on the subject.
Chris
NZ Marks
That's exactly how they were when I was an Armourer in NZ too. But our Army ones didn't have the lashings of varnish on them Chris!
We always went by the serial number but the NZ number was referred to as 'the NZ number' or officially as 'the census number' for some reason.
Any of yours originate from the Ngaruawahia sales Chris?
Chris, thanks for the information. I did find the following thread regarding the marking of No.4s sent to New Zealand at another forum (if I am not allowed to use links to other forums, then please delete), and it does mention electropenciling as a marking option, and that it "depended on what RNZEME workshop was assigned the work":
http://parallaxscurioandrelicfirearm...om/topic/24490
If this is incorrect, then I would like clarification ASAP so I can send the bloomin' rifle back if necessary! :bash:
I've had a few marked as pictured above. My very first Long Branch No.4, a 1943 rifle is also marked but with the electric pencil. I've no doubt it's correct as done in New Zealand. I bought it from a shop I worked for in Florida as a kid and I still have it.
Hi again
If a rifle came up here with an electro pencilled NZ mark, I can safely say that it would be treated with suspicion you just don’t see them here. My question is that if the armourer went to the trouble to “stamp” the NZ number on the butt socket and bolt then why did he not stamp N^Z on it?
I have been in contact in the past with the national NZ army museum; the No4 was never used by NZ army during WW2 (except No4 T) only the SMLE’s was used, I have inspected some of their No4’s all stamped N^Z.
New Zealand was one of the few countries that was owed money after the war as we supplied food, wool, flax, wood etc, all No4 &No5’s were supplied in payment and to make up for war losses, we got thousands more than we ever needed (that is why Peter found unopened crates of them). I guess that when these rifles were all sold off, we in NZ got all the old “used” rifles and any new rifles were sold overseas, that is when I think the electro pencilled mark turns up. I have a suspicion that the electro pencil mark is a later addition when sold, funning that they seem to only turn up in the states.
Chris
Ps. The stamped N^Z mark is on just about all NZ issued rifles SMLE, Metfords, and I have even seen it on a Martini carbine but never the other.
I've got a couple of black plastic oilers with the NZ marking on the cap. They're priced at $5 each.
As a bit of an aside, when I was an Armourer there, I put the NZ census mark on a load of L2 rifles for a unit at Papakura. The NZ numbers were in addition to the AD/Lithgow number and were allocated from a place at Trentham via the main Ordnance depot at Sylvia Park. The rifles were crap and soon got back loaded for lack of a) spares b) enthusiasm for them and c) lack of intrerest in them. I just stamped them but in NZ, as well as the normal stamps and electric pencil (known to us in the LAD workshops as the fuzzy pen.....) we also had a hand held vibrating chisel type of tool that you could use to chisel out the number etc. It was quite a ferocious machine and if you didn't hold it tight and support your hand, it'd just chomp out divets of metal leaving a mess. Being a pom I just stuck to what I knew - the number stamps! And left the vibro-cutter to Jock Annandale who was also a pom, but a Jock pom if that makes any sense! Jock was also a friend of the late KimW from this forum. Small world..............
Jock Annandale was VERY good with the vibro cutter to the extent that he 'engraved' my name on the back of my Omega watch with it which I still have somewhere. I've never seen one of the hand held vibrators since.......... well, I have but not with a chisel at the front!
I just got my 1943 LB out to refresh my memory. It's stamped on the butt socket above the LB serial number with the N^Z and the 38408 NZ number. It's engraved on the top of the receiver ring with an electric pencil NZ over 38408. It's the only I remember seeing with the electric pencil marking on the top of the receiver. it's original and unaltered, has some character too unlike some of the newish rifles i've had that were NZ marked. I had changed out the original LB Mk.2 flip sight for a British Mk.1 as a kid but have since changed it back to "as issued" with the Mk.2 sight. It shoots like a dream too. Hey, I ought to put one of these oil bottles in it!!
When I was in NZ, the Armourers had heard of the Mk1/2 and 1/3 rifles from the EMER's and parts lists but hadn't seen one in the flesh so I got the drawings and a defective Mk1/2 body sent over from the main 40 Base Workshops in Singapore. I've still got a set of the DDE drawings that I kept for myself
It was KimW's prior post on the parallax forum that I referenced earlier regarding the electropenciling, and it sounded like he had first or second hand experience regarding the electropenciling of No.4s at a NZREME workshop level. I am sure that Mr. Laidler can fill in the details on someone who sounded like an interesting person. So really the question is this - was the electropenciling done when the rifles were received and/or when they were sold? I will try and dig deeper.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Laidler
I am sure that they were done once they were in service. I can't say about the No4's (and we had some No5's too) of course as they all seemed to be marked but the L2's that I did were already in service. I did a load of L2A3 Sterling SMG's too that were issued to replace the old Mk2 Sten guns that we had. My boss had gone to Bordon in England to do the technical course on the Sterlings and as I'd already been trained on them, together we taught the other regular and CMF/TF Armourers the inns and out of them - including one Bruce Gorton than many of you Kiwis will remember
I remember one RNZAF Armourer who knew the complicated .303" Brownings inside out and upside down to the Nth detail but he just couldn't quite grasp the trigger mechanism of the Sterling. I suggested cutting a trigger mech open to skeletonise it but Jock said that we didn't have enough of the expensive spares to waste doing that........... I went back a few months later and left a huge bagfull of L2A3 spares on his desk plus Bren locking shoulder screws that I seem to recall were always in short supply!