No. 4T questions

[Roger Payne]

Hi Ridolpho,
Sorry, but I posted the above reponse a bit prematurely, before I noticed JM Peter & Surpmil had dealt with things pretty comprehensively!
However, the indexing mark is always a useful thing to bear in mind when looking at purported original 4T's. You will generally find two enfield examiner's marks - more often than not one either side of the bolt way. IIRC there will be a crown E7E which I have always believed to be the mark of the examiner at the BSA factory. Usually on the other side, you will more often than not (though by NO MEANS ALWAYS) find the crown D6E of H&H. As mentioned before though, this is not invariable & is often not present on earlier conversions. It may sound weird, but I have owned several early (1941 dated) rifles that bore the D6E on the KNOX. I have never seen any reference to this anywhere, but I have seen more than one.

If the barrel is original (highly unlikely) you will find it bears an indexing mark at 6 o'clock, mating up to the indexing mark on the front lower body.

I don't recall seeing the serial configuration like yours on other 1943 dated rifles. Looking at the butt socket the stamping is a mess & looks to be double stamped - possibly how the '1' in between the A's got there. The more usual serial configuration would have been an 'A' followed by another letter from the alphabet (in this case another A) followed by a four digit number.

I would have said the number on the butt was the scope number & was indicative of an REL scope, as the number ends with a C. However, REL never made anything like three thousand odd scopes, so I'm afraid I don't know where that leaves us!

If it shoots well, came with a functional No32, & didn't cost too much, then I guess you've still done ok!

ATB

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[Ridolpho]

Roger: Thanks for the additional and very useful comments. As you may have noticed the goofy serial number (A1A? prefix) is also stamped deeply and crudely on the barrel. I hope to get to the range with this thing soon but I'll be using a Weaver scope on it rather than the much abused No.32 Mk1.

Ridolpho

[Ridolpho]

Peter, Roger, jmoore,rgg 7, surpmil: You guys were bang on! Stripped her and took off the front pad (first hint of trouble was how easily it came off) only to find an awful epoxy job. Honestly, I could have done a better job installing a pad. Cleaned it up a bit and, as you can see on attached photos, there were some marks directly beneath the pad. I'm pretty sure I see, in electo-pencil, FTR surrounding a large M. There is milling evident at the front of the flat (and it was done much more professionally than the work on the pad) but I have a sneaking suspicion you guys are going to tell me it doesn't resemble the machining done at H&H. Also, Roger, no indexing marks on action body or barrel. So, I guess I'll be returning this to the seller who I'm pretty sure will take it back. Many thanks to all of you for all the detailed info and help. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever see a genuine "T" but after all of this I suspect I may actually know it when I do.!

Ridolpho