No4 experamentail Beer Defender, o rjust mental?

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Silly Kiwi, everyone know a shotgun is the best for beer defense.

In my younger days I shotgunned every beer in sight. Now I only do away with the ones that are threatening me.

I just fell from my chair.
Canada produces the best humor hands down.

[RJW NZ]

I just fell from my chair.
Canada produces the best humor hands down.

Too true,

[Peter Laidler]

Don't laugh at this rifle because while it might LOOK a bit, er......... off the wall, there is a bit of provenance to the theory of it. I might have mentioned it before - in fact I am sure I have, but while I was an NZ, I found the remains of a VERY similar looking No4 in a locked store cupboard at our big workshop at the big Ordnance Depot at Ngaruawahia, known to all you Kiwis as Hopu-Hopu Camp on the Hamilton to Taupiri road.

My boss, WO2 Annandale told me that it was the remains of a shortened lightweight rifle that NZ was developing for the invasion of Malaya, Singapore and everywhere else with Britain, Australia and Canada. Unfortunately, the bomb put an end to this project. As a bit of an aside, it also put an end to Japan too but we're not too interested in that here! Anyway..........

Britain had the No5 in hand, Canada had the drawings plus it's own lightweight (but hardly a shortie.....), Aust had a No6 in hand and so NZ looked at a similar lightweight. And the remains I found was one of the many prototypes that were around that everyone had lost interest in. Furthermore, it looked JUST like that fridge rifle - from what I could tell.

Basically, the butt was visibly and clearly lightened in its width. Nothing else was different up until the lower band and when you got to the lower band, it looked as though you'd got to the muzzle of the rifle. Everything was the same.
The upper handguard cap was fitted to the slightly altered lower handguard and the;
fore-end cap was fitted to and matched up with the upper hanguard cap so that the;
upper band held the two together as per normal and the;
sling loop was now fitted to the upper band.

One bit that did intrigue me was that the flip-over backsight had one leaf cut across half way to form a sort of SMLE open sight closer to the eye that I thought was because most NZ soldiers had been bought up on the SMLE style of backsights. The ASM told (or the paperwork.....) suggested that such an open sight allowed a degree of quick response with reasonable accuracy shooting that you wouldn't get with an aperture sight

The barrel was shortened and just as we've been discussing here lately, the barrel was complete, with foresight band blocks and bayonet lugs that were correctly aligned.

There was lots of odds and sods missing and I asked the ASM if I could complete it. I did a few bits but didn't pay it much attention but I did put it in the small collection of weapons that we had there that I think belonged to the Ordnance Depot. There were some papers around and I recall that the barrel length was dictated by the thickness at the point where it was cut and machined so that the vibrations that would drastically affect undamped accuracy were damped by the diametrical weight.

I wouldn't mind betting that these remains ended up at Waiouru where the rest of the stuff went and somewhere in the Government archives, there will be other paperwork that details these rifles. The other coincidence is that when I spoke to Bruce Gorton in Invercargill about these rifles, he had heard of then and I seem to remember that he had seen one and mentioned the reason why they were scrapped and I have a feeling that it was something to do with the fact that the rifles were lend lease and didn't actually belong to NZ. But I don't know.

That's my only interest

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Too true,

Dan Ackroid, John Candy, Phil Hartman etc etc....
One question eh. Is it the beer,the cold weather or other factors I have not concidered?
BTW NZ and Australia have the prettiest women. Or is it the accent?

[5thBatt]

NZ girls....helen clark, sue bradford.... yummy yummy, time for a Tui

[Stevo]

Dan Ackroid, John Candy, Phil Hartman etc etc....
One question eh. Is it the beer,the cold weather or other factors I have not concidered?
BTW NZ and Australia have the prettiest women. Or is it the accent?

It's the long cold winters, stuck inside with nothing to do but watch hockey and make sure the block heater in your car is still working.

I'm guessing you've not seen Trailer Park Boys.

[muffett.2008]

Lucy Lawless.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Lucy Lawless.

Oh Yea!
Not my intention to take this thread on a tangent but oh yea!

---------- Post added at 11:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 AM ----------

I'm guessing you've not seen Trailer Park Boys.

Not yet but thanks for the heads up. I will now.

[Stevo]

Not yet but thanks for the heads up. I will now.

Be warned, it's not exactly kid friendly, language wise.

Search youtube for "Rickyisms".

[Patrick Chadwick]

No, no, no! You've all got it wrong! The freezing is a cunning trick to tighten up the headspace by shrinking the rifle