Hi all,
I saw this Lee Enfield sniper; il's a 1942 Long Branch and has a british scope (an Mk I). I am very suspicious on it originality, but I know very little on the canadian Enfield sniper rifles.
What do you think about it?
Thank you.
G.Carlo
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Hi all,
I saw this Lee Enfield sniper; il's a 1942 Long Branch and has a british scope (an Mk I). I am very suspicious on it originality, but I know very little on the canadian Enfield sniper rifles.
What do you think about it?
Thank you.
G.Carlo
The rings are definitely reproductions which have been "modified" to appear more real.
I would like to see better views of the pads and from both sides of the receiver wall.
I will say that there is one aspect of the front pad which absolutely screams that it (the pad) is fake to me.
There are a few other things which I look for specific to Long Branch snipers, but no I'm not going to share them in a public forum.
I would agree with Lee Enfield on the request for more views of the pads, without the scope & bracket on, but if more pics are not available I'd stick my neck out & say it's made up. The scope & scope tin are genuine & the cheekpiece could be genuine Canadian or a good repro. The bracket is a modern copy & the bolt has been renumbered to match the rifle.
I believe that the bolt is correct and has not been re-numbered. If you look to the bolt root, the inspectors markings are still intact and the flat appears in modified.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Payne
I'd suggest the receiver may be renumbered however.
My eyes are not good enough to make any pronouncements on the rifle body numbers - I'd need better pics, but I am still suspicious of the numbering on the bolt body. The style of the numbers looks pretty right but the radial machining marks present on the root of the bolt handle where it attaches to the body are polished out where the numbers have been applied, yet there is a small swell of welt surrounding the '1' if not the other numbers, suggesting the flat was cleaned off after manufacture, but before it was numbered (or renumbered). I don't have Lee Enfield's wealth of experience on specifically Canadian rifles, but from what I've seen most factories did not polish machining marks out before numbering a bolt.
But regardless, I think the message to the OP must be beware..........unless it's very cheap.
All you need to know is that it is a fake. I am not as diplomatic as the others..............
I thought the first LB snipers were dated 1943?
The first snipers may have been done in 43, but they may have used earlier rifles. Problem is there are so many fakes (like this one) with early numbers, they skew any hope of forming a list of correct ones.
Agree with Roger on the bolt handle....it was the first thing I looked for. The serial number has been polished....you can still see some of the machining marks right up until the serial number starts. That is not to say that the army didn't re-number bolts, because they certainly did. I recently picked up about 80 LongBranch bolt bodies that came directly from Cdn service. Of those, maybe 25 had been renumbered, and it wasn't pretty either. The area was left in the white after grinding.
The serial number on the repro/doctored scope mount also look very suspect to me, as would be expected on a fake scope mount. However the numbers on the receiver wrist look fine.
Yes. In the 40L block. I've never seen or heard about a '42 LB sniper that wasn't a fake.
Quote:
Originally Posted by superbee
one of the Long Branch No4 T's which was converted to L42 status was a 1942 dated action according to its recorded serial number.Quote:
Originally Posted by limpetmine
one of the other ones would have been a 1941 dated action assuming the serial number on the list is correct.
Having said that several of the recorded L42 serial numbers are incorrect or incomplete - the guns (and in one case the transit chest) having surfaced for examination.
Canadian LB snipers were being delivered for testing and evaluation
Here's two that are way out of the accepted range
Attachment 80370
Warren: The serial numbers on the bottom two rifles (ASE40-8 and ASE40-3): Are those numbers indicative of a project batch? I think we have seen numbering similar to that elsewhere in the LB rifles....was it the lightened series?
Very interesting Warren, thank you for sharing that.
Transcript of the text:
Seems logical to assume that LB would make up the regular rifles for contracts, [No.4 Mk.I* or No.4 Mk.I*(T)] in the usual way, but if they wanted rifles for experimental purposes, they might have made them up from suitable actions/rifles which could have been pre-production or early production rifles that were not accounted for in a contract, or were rejected for some defect that did not make them unsuitable for whatever trial was being conducted.Quote:
Measure of Jump 13 May 1944
The following data was compiled at the request of Maj. B.L. Anderson of D.12, C.M.H.Q. The figures were arrived at by aligning the axis of the bore on the horizontal line of a screen at a range of 71 feet 7" the bore being relayed [sic] after each shot by sighting the telescope on a mark coinciding with the correct original lay. The shots fired struck the screen above the horizontal line with the amount in minutes determined by rule measurement in inches transferring to minutes, assuming that one minute of angle at 71 feet 7" is equal to .25 inches. By adding the drop due to gravity, in this case 0.166 inches a reasonably accurate figure is obtained. Figures given are the distances of five shots fired from each rifle, above the centre of the horizontal line measured in inches.
There's a rifle in Without Warning that was made up as a gift for Maj. Hahn, who was head of the War Production Board in WWII, and in WWI chief of the intelligence section of the Canadian Corps. They used a recycled No.4(T) action no less; the plugged rear pad holes can be seen in the photo. You'd think a presentation like that would use a new receiver, but perhaps new receivers were all accounted for? I've got an un-numbered 1943 action that has the 4BA holes in the receiver with a piece of a tap broken off in one of them, and the holes set back about 1/4". A "missing link" screw-up from 1943? Maybe. Someone later built it up into a sporter and it turned up at a local gunshow.
In other words I don't think they threw much away at Long Branch if it could possibly be used for some purpose at some time.
Too bad no one asked these gents when they were alive as now we can only make what seem like logical guesses.
Thank you all.
Unfortunately I have only these pictures.
Initially I thought it would be one of the italian Enfield sniper rifles, but several things not convincing.
Is normal the lack of scope serial number on the butt?
No, it's not normal Giove, you would generally expect to see a scope number there regardless of whether you were looking at a UK or Canadian set up 4T. The only exceptions were the No4 (T) Less telescope rifles, but AFAIK these consist only of British rifles, not Canadian.
Thank you Roger.
Another picture:
Specific to Major Hahn's rifle, it was a mounting trial's rifle which was sporterized.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surpmil
Originally it was built as a standard sniper and then the pads were removed and the rifle was converted to the side mount pattern. Presumably this was done to gauge whether there was a negative effect upon accuracy by changing mount patterns.
There is another rifle illustrated in "British Sniper" which was similarly converted from standard to side mount.
One of the things about the side mount, the mounting pattern is standardized between the side mounts.
Quite possibly Hahn's rifle was used as a/the test bed for the REL-TP and G&H high/med/long/short mounts, before being assembled with the production G&H pattern mount.
The ASE type serial numbers were bugging me as I knew I had seen them before. Had a flash of memory and sure enough, in "without Warning" the ASC and ASE serials are explained as "ASC being for scout rifles, "ASE" being for section rifles. (pages 57 and 58).
Both these rifles are on the list of known examples given in the book: ASE40-3 had a 3-1/2 power Gimbell scope while ASE40-8 had a 5 power Gimbell scope. Both had mounts described as "Long Base Fired".
Whew, now I will be able to sleep tonight without those serial numbers nagging me. I knew I had seen them somewhere.
Bloody nice bit of timber on that though
Another fake L.B. sniper, I think. What do you think about it?
Attachment 81210Attachment 81211Attachment 81212
Yes, a fake. Even a cursory glance shows the front pad screws are incorrect
Thank you Roger.
There are a number of known Savage "less telescope" rifles that popped up in the last 15 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Payne
Thanks for the clarification. I agree entirely. They didn't occur to me off the top of my head perhaps because although of US manufacture they were set up over here at H&H along with all of the BSA's......
Yes, that's so. What is interesting to me is that of these Savage Less Telescoped T's that showed up, many, many, of them were in the No. 15 crate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Payne
Interesting. I have a scoped up Mk1 Savage T, & one scoped & one less scope Mk1* rifle. Unfortunately my less scope rifle came on its own. A correct (suitably stencilled) chest would be the icing on the cake!
Like tits on a bull as the saying goes. (I guess that was "teats" originally!)Quote:
Originally Posted by giove