Whitaker Special

[Strangely Brown]

I Make no apologies for having posted this on Gunboards as well; the plus point on this board is that the majority of posters here take a more technical and mature approach to the research we all like to indulge in.
Sermon over!

After a wait of some few weeks I finally collected the Whitaker on Sunday; these are a few pictures of it and a very general over view:

On first sight it appears very short compared to other "transitional" target rifles I own, it took a while for me to realise this is somewhat of an optical illusion caused by a short John Wilkes foresight and a longer stock, coupled with a slightly fatter barrel than the "Hart" No 4 I own.

Unusually this example has been fitted with a Swing rear sight, I don't think I have seen a Lee Enfield reciever with one on before.
Given the foresight is a John Wilkes it is no surprise to see a Swing on the back, those of you with Wilkes rear sights will notice how close in design the Swing is to the Wilkes, the reason for this is that George Swenson (an American) was working for Wilkes before designing the Swing and is believed to have had a hand in designing some of those sights.

We are lucky that Bert Whitaker "signed" his work otherwise these and the "Hart" No 4's would end up as just another 7.62 TR conversion, whilst the markings of Whitaker are nice and clear the serial number which has been electronically penciled looks like he did it late on a friday afternoon!

The comb is lower on this stock than my Hart which makes shooting at 300 yards a bit easier to get you eye to the sight.

When I collected it from Fultons and started to have a good look at it I was told it would look much better when the "Fultons crud" was taken off, this has been true!
The bore looked a bit dark when I first saw it but thanks to Hoppes No 9 it now has a mirror look.

The trigger is a touch disappointing for a target rifle with very much a two stage military
feel to it, although slightly better than some No 4's I have fired.

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