Early Longbranch pics and some questions...of course.

[ickmann]

For your viewing pleasure. She's a bit filthy, so I disassembled her to clean her up good. Was surprised to see that she was cork bedded. First one for me. It looks like someone was practicing their stamping technique on the cocking piece as almost the whole alphabet is there. Any rhyme or reason to this? Also found it interesting that she has a hole on the left side, exactly where my trade pattern LB sniper has one filled in with weld. Were these for Parker Hale style sight mounting purposes? Then I started to think so far out of the box that maybe these were built from old No.1 MK3 receiver blanks with the safety selector holes pre-drilled before the rest of the machining was completed, left as blanks, then picked up as surplus and re-used for early Longbranch production. Don't think that was possible tho.

Ian

http://s31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...%20Longbranch/

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Maxwell Smart]

I have a No 4 target rifle with just such a hole in the side of the "wrist" - the rifle had a "Central" sight mounting plate on it.

[Frederick303]

Right after WWII, in the 1946~1948 time period, Canadian full bore rules allowed a single hole to be drilled in the side of the action body as shown in the picture. This was to allow the use of No 1 MKIII target sights. This modification was allowed because Canadian rules required the use of the No 4 for service rifle shooting in 1946, but the 5C and TZ sights did not appear in quantity until ~1947. As UK production was first supplied, there was a period from 1947 to 1949 when it was difficult to get these sights in Canada. By 1949 the shortage was over and for the most part this modification fell out of favor. I will have to check my Connaught rule books, but I think it remained in the rule book until at least 1953

[Warren]

The same transgressions happened to the Ross as well, with holes in the receiver and other places. Target shooters have no shame :-)##
when it comes to squeezing the last bit of accuracy out of a rifle. Point in question...this near mint Ross with the nicest colour case hardened bolt you will find.

[Peter Laidler]

Seeing your TP rifle Ickman reminds me that a few years ago I sent one into our Base workshop for a new barrell (they squirrelled a few away for a rainy day I have to confess.........) as it was shooting like a pig. The barrel change bought on the pains because the usual body and barrel clamps won't fit with the side mount fitted! So it meant unsweating the body side mount, remove old shot-out barrel, breeching up new barrel, loose fit the mount, bore sight several times in order to get the best aligned barrel. Then breech up fully then re-sweat and secure mount then bead blast and phosphate.

If only I realised then that with all this 'originality is everything' fuss, this rare rifle is now just a mix and match heap of tat with no pedigree.