My first SHTLE MKIII.

[Surpmil]

Yes,
ZF is condemmed but repairable by the original factory.
BER is another 'mark' meaning 'Beyond Economical repair' (financially cheaper to scrap and issue a new rifle.

Z is condemmed and not repairable by even the original factory, It should not be rebuilt and made into a live firearm as people better qualified that we have declared it unsafe & unrepairable.


An old post from 2008 by Peter Laidler

The short answer to this is that the ZF marking to an Armourer means that this is the end of the line.

The Z means that it has been condemned at a Base workshop (that's the Z bit) as suitable only for a Factory Repair (that's the F part). This will indicate something to do with a part that cannot be rectified at Base Workshop and that is inevitably a damaged body. On a No4 rifle, this is what we call 'the master component', a part that is NEVER supplied as a spare part through the Ordnance channels.

There was only one other mark that was more extreme than ZF and that was ZF-BER. Which meant that in addition to the ZF, one of the examiners had decreed it to be beyond economic repair in any case. But effectively, both were the same......................

There was a milder Z-BER which indicated that it wasn't even worth sending to the factory and at workshops, these were torched!

So, the rifle your correspondent is referring to falls into one of three categories
1) scrap
2) very scrap
3) Extremely scrap

And assuming that the marks and associated standards and practices over the years have not changed - as this rifle was probably sentenced just after WWII I would think - then what do we have?

A rifle that was reproofed before being sold as surplus and used in a civilian context for a couple more generations.

Conclusion: probably sentenced for excessive body wear and inability to headspace on whatever the standard was for the No.1 Rifle at the time.

But I'm not sure that makes sense either as from Peter has told us, at least in regard to the No4 Rifle, there was no cure for inability to headspace on a No2 bolthead (of the proper length!), even at "the factory", so why would such a rifle be marked "Z" as though it could be repaired, when it could not even at a "factory"?

We know from Peter IIRC, that relaxation of the headspacing standard was at least considered, which would only have been the case if safety was not an issue. As I recall Peter's remarks were that a rifle that would not headspace on the standard was simply considered not to have sufficient life left to justify the cost of overhaul.

Unsafe? I doubt it.