Did US made Savage guns actually ship with 6 groove barrels? ie issued with them?

[ssj]

Reading Major Reynolds "The Lee-Enfield rifle" book, page 154 paragraph 3,

"and they were the only ones to be fitted with barrels embodying six-grooved rifling"

Is this correct?

The reason Im interested in this is for 6 months Ive tried to get a new barrel and failed (ive even asked in the UK, Im in NZ). However TSEngineering in Australia will sell/make me a no4 contoured barrel, but it has 6 grooves, not 5 (I assume its a CNC externally machined 26inch barrel to match a no4 barrel profile from something else) For our service rifle rules Im supposed to use as issued parts. Which is "funny" as the old timers tell me they went through piles of new barrels in years gone by looking for "good" ones. So yeah sure their barrels are military as issued but carefully selected. So I consider it somewhat unfair when they say I cant get one made to spec. Anyway unless Im unable to find such which after 6months I think is enough I need evidence that anything non-original follows as issued as closely as possible.

So has anyone seen these 6 groovers and / or has evidence they existed?

Information

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[Ridolpho]

ssj: The answer to your first question is "No". Longbranch put out some 6 groove barrels in the fifties made on equipment used for bren barrels (opposite to normal twist). I have a '43 that was rebarreled thusly and it's a great shooter with a Parker-Hale vernier peep sight. As to savage, I seem to vaguely recall reading that some 6 groove barrels were used early on.

Ridolpho

[conec]

I have a 4C Savage that features a 6 groove barrel...

[tbonesmith]

I recently saw a 1950 Long Branch with a 6 groove barrel. Don't know if it came from the factory with it, but is was an original military barrel.

[Lee Enfield]

I believe the Savage 6groove barrels are left hand.

I know the postwar Canadian barrels are right hand twist.

[Curator]

From my understanding and looking at real examples, early Savage No4 Mk1 (not *) rifles had 6-groove barrels until about halfway through 5C series serial numbers in 1942. They were right hand twist 1 in 10". Long Branch made 6-groove barrels on the Bren barrel blanks in the 50s (CNo.4Mk1*) with 1 in 10" left hand twist.

[Roger Payne]

I have heard, though I've never tried to confirm its accuracy, that, as curator says, the early Savage Mk1 rifles had 6 groove barrels because Savage were using/adapting barrel making tooling left over from defunct French contracts for production of the Mas 36. This may or may not be true, but I'd be interested to know if anyone else has heard this story & can clarify???

ATB

[Brian Dick]

I've heard and read the story Rog although I thought it was barrel machinery for the Berthier. I could be wrong. The twist rate is 1 in 9 or 9.5. I can't remember which. I think this is mentioned in one of Ian Skennerton's books if memory serves. Maybe Paul can weigh in.