Long Branch - Linking Serial Numbers to Month of Production

[Lee Enfield]

I note that you have 90L8 block sniping rifles as being completed in July/ Aug '45. I'm afraid that that is almost certainly incorrect from the DND and Archives research Clive Law conducted for "Without Warning":

You need to throw out all of the "Block" serial numbers for sniping rifles from your listing as they were definitely completed "out of sequence" of standard production.

From Clive Law's book, specific to Canadian sniping rifles:

71 mfg up to Dec 31, 1943
1141 Jan 1 1944 to Dec 31 1945 (Note: Skennerton lists approximately 99 [of 350] No32TPs as being set up during early 1945)
376 mfg by Canadian Arsenals Ltd 1946 (Note: Most or all being C.No.32 Mk3 scopes)

* Note that the Long Branch factory was transferred from Small Arms Limited Dec31, 1945 to Canadian Arsenals Limited Jan 1, 1946 *

1588 total manufacture

Clive Law's Note: Only 1,524 scopes are recorded as having been produced & purchased by R.E.L. & DND respectively.
My Note: the various trials reports referenced in "Without Warning" reference several types of unknown REL & Lyman experimental scopes... and others (at least one Weaver) are they contained within the extra 64 rifle overlap? Add that to the various observed "4 digit" MkII scopes which appear to have been marked with an additional digit to correct a second (or more) scope marked with the same serial number.

Law's conclusions are that the REL No.32 MkI, IA & II scopes are numbered CONSECUTIVELY, while the C.No.67 (No.32 MkIV), C.No.32 Mk3, and No.32TP run in their own sequences. Having said that, MkI, IA & II serials show limited (and unexplained) overlap (probably like a late numbered receiver with earlier features).