Looky what I found today... (can you say rare?)

[Claven2]

Before we get started, no, this rifle IS NOT FOR SALE to anyone at any price so before I get the inevitable PM's, please accept that they will go unanswered.

This is the second of these experimental shortened and lightened Longbranch REL sniper rifles I have ever come across. The last went into a collection in Markham, Ontario about 6 or 7 years ago. This one just came for sale and is already off the market again, but I thought we could all enjoy the pics

This is serial number 3. I don't know how many LB made, but it could not have been more than 10or so at most for limited trials. The ASC43 prefix seems to be common to the examples out there.

If anyone knows much more about these, do share. Clive Law saw the last one (it was sold in Ottawa before it went to a collection in Markham) and was very envious of the new owner.


Matching number on the mount, of course.

Just look at that cute little stubby safety lever and the multi-range rotating apreature sight offset from the bore.

Nifty swing-out front sight like a Bren...


This is neat - look at the hand stop and the coarse checkering to improve the grip. Also, there's a finger groove/lightening cut in the forestock at the handguard interface. I half wonder if these were not the inspiration for the L39 and L42 rifles?

You can see here the receivers were made from standard No.4MkI receivers - the rear sight plunger hole has been neatly plugged.

And we all know what these scopes sell for these days...

Here we see the lightening cut in the receiver sidewall.

Scope mount:

forearm checkering:

And the cheekpiece is a bit wider to the left side than a normal 4T cheekpiece - presumably for the offset iron sights.

Matching bolt:


All the proofs are LB and C-arrow. No Canadian Arsenals stamps. I suspect the rifle was built in very late 1943 (hence the ASC43 marks) and the scope to be an early 1944 REL optic. Obviously, these never went into full production.

Hope y'all enjoyed the show and tell

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.