No 4 1/2 and 1/3's

[Peter Laidler]

Bolts were wired to the rifle body and remained as a matched pair but while I am not certain about the woodwork, I don't think it would be logical to match up woodwork on assembly. It was a VAST undertaking and during the Korean war era, was a 20 hour a day operation with 4 hours for care and maintenance.

Don't forget that for the upgraded Mk1/2 and 1/3, the tedious and time consuming process of setting trigger pressures was halved because it could be carried out regardless of the fore-end.

I think I've mentioned this before but while the Mk1/2, 1/3 and 2 were said to allow the use of relatively unseasoned wood, where any warpage would upset the trigger pull, that was only a very small part of it. The principal reason was to speed up rifle production. And the sheer volume of scale tipped the financial balance