This One Has Me Scratching My Head

[Roger Payne]

If we're suggesting that the rifle has been in some way 'faked' then i suppose it could have, but I can't really surmise why it would have. I doubt very much that such a rifle would be worth a big premium over say, a 'standard' BSA rifle from 1945. It is curious, but I wouldn't have thought it valuable monetarily. That is usually the motive for people to fake things.

As regards the D6E on the rear of the bolt guide way, I have no idea why it is there in Lee enfield's photo, but it is, & I have a stripped reciver dated 1945 that was earmarked for conversion but wasn't, but also bears the D6E. I don't think it has been faked - I have had the receiver in a plastic box in my gun room for at least twenty years & I doubt there'd have been much incentive to create a non-sniper sniper's rifle before that. But then, who knows?!

If H&H outsourced the examiner(s) to BSA later in the production history of the 4T, such that the D6E's were applied at BSA BEFORE the machining took place down at H&H that would explain why we see these occasional examiner marked rifles that were never converted. However, I am only thinking out loud.......... or are they all 'faked up'? Any other suggestions?

[newcastle]

The most obvious solution is 99% probable and that would be your theory of stamps being applied at BSA prior to any work beginning on them. I stress that I am saying this not from a position of knowledge but a position of looking at probability given a) the fake market is recent and b) I have never seen this mentioned before even on that website, and if it was a possible to sell fakes with this it would have been done and seen. I guess it's only a matter of time😀

[CINDERS]

I agree with RP & PL in the summation of things the quantities involved wartime expedients of production and converting these rifles what could have gone on we will never now know I also feel BAR may be well founded in his suspicions but we cannot write things off because they do not fit a certain mold/criteria of how a weapon should be marked. As RP stated the money side of things is not going to balloon the thing to the stratosphere we are just going to have to live with the fact that it may be like Rogers receiver that for some reason did not get anywhere and in this case this particular weapon was stamped and then assembled post war carrying the marks.
We can never ascertain to a 100% accuracy why these types present themselves and can only go on what is written and researched by authors such as Peter, Brian Labbuda and Ian Skennerton and those gun professionals that have years upon years of dealing with these weapons that is what I base my learning's on them to help me along this long road.

The only other way is to perhaps request from Holland & Holland their employees records or someone with BSA's and track down the WWII inspectors and ask them if any are still alive and what an onerous task that would be in fact they might have forgotten what was what with the processes involved in the builds and stamping, be nice to know what the "S" denoted but.......

[Roger Payne]

Agreed Cinders. In fact Peter did an awful lot of research & visited the old workshops at H&H when he was writing his 4T/L42 book, & I have never had any reason to doubt his suggestion that the D6E represented Harry Hardwick (if that was his name, I'm speaking off the cuff from memory without Pete's book to hand), one of the inspectors at H&H, but this then still leaves us with this strange situation of the markings appearing on rifles that were never converted. Most odd. Indeed some could have been faked, but there's little incentive to, & whilst I have only owned one D6E non converted rifle (receiver), they have been mentioned before here on the forum & we know that a few exist. It seems unlikely to me, at least IMHO, that they are all fakes. So, we still have a puzzle!

Peter, did you ever come across any more information on the conversion procedure that wasn't included in the book but which might shed any light on this anomaly? Could the rifles have gone down to H&H, been marked up earlier in the conversion process (at the beginning, before the pads were fitted), but then were not converted & subsequently just went into service as standard No4's? Even that still makes it hard to explain the 1947 dated example that started off this thread......unless the butt socket was linished & redated by BSA -or a faker- yet the untidy style of the butt socket markings matches the one I saw exactly. That rifle had been amongst a large batch of surplus rifles that were deactivated, & wasn't even noticed until after it had been chopped. IIRC it bore a Y prefix serial number, making it a little later even than the one shown at the start of this thread.

[henry r]

some questions.

is there a known D6B inspectors mark?

were the D6E marks added at the beginning, middle or end of the conversion process?

if at the beginning, did mr hardwick do his inspections at H&H or at BSA before the rifles were send to H&H?

are all the possible genuine D6E non sniper rifles post 1945 dated?

did H&H hand in all of their equipment (ie stamps) related to inspecting government work after they had finished their last 4T contract?

did harry hardwick stay with H&H after the war?


a little off topic, has anyone done a systematic study on the stamped markings used on british no4T production to try to work out a sequence of stamp changes and wear?
i ask as a family friend has a rather large collection of convict era tools. it is thought to be the best collection in Australia (various government libraries and museums borrow from his collection for exhibitions as his collection is larger and more diverse than any they have).
there were multiple government ironworks that made tools, each had their own broad arrow stamps to mark their work. the broad arrow stamps were all handmade, hence vary in size and shape.
the ironwork for various government buildings was also made by the different government run ironworks and the supply details for the construction some of these buildings still exist. hence by examining the door hinges and other ironwork at various buildings and cross referencing it to the ironwork supply details, you can tell what broad arrow stamp was used by what ironworks and roughly when.
he has been able to identify where and when some of his tools were made due to the broad arrow stamps used and sequence some of them as well by wear/damage to the stamps.

[CINDERS]

Further the henryr's questions I may add the rifles were selected after assembly and accuracy checks those above average collared and sent to H&H for the conversion to T variant, RP the name you mentioned rings a bell I am to lazy to grab peters book at present as its late and I am in minimum effort mode! I guess it comes down to a collective if Peter is so inclined to converse with Ian and Brian Lab for I feel those 3 are subject matter experts.
I am not trying to be rude to others whom posses a long working history on the Lee line either but there has to be a top of the litter which we mere mortals can address when we have questions.

As for the stamps I do not know I have heard another story that the Tiptaft stamps were procured by some unsavory people and the Australian WWI/II hat and collar badges stamped to increase their value 10 fold from just an ordinary hat/collar price. So those types are out there and it is well to do that if one is deciding to buy a HT or T they visit this site with q's if they think there are erroneous things with the fire arm. Just recently we had that No.4 T real cheap with that Alaskan scope on a purported LB T really cheap and no amount of persuasion could get clear pics of the relevant stamping.
Peter would it be possible for you to have an amended T book I know you have just finished or about to release the Bren book (I Think) and whilst I have had no experience publishing a book it would be a mammoth task, its just that so much new material has come to light perhaps teaming up with Ian again and split the work load. What do you reckon......?

[browningautorifle]

If we're suggesting that the rifle has been in some way 'faked' then i suppose it could have, but I can't really surmise why it would have.

Perhaps not for the purpose of it but for someone looking to have an example and was just assembling his own rifle...was my thought. We built bags of them, back when parts and wood was available and them moved them on after time. All done very innocently.

[Roger Payne]

Hello Henry. Never came across D6B in sniper connections, but D6E is generally believed to have been applied towards (at?) the end of the conversion process by HH at H&H. The rifles were stamped with the TR at BSA before they left for H&H to indicate that they were put to one side for sniper conversion, having satisfied the accuracy standards. AFAICR the S on the cut-off block is thought to have been applied at H&H to indicate that the rifle had come with a Mk1 Singer sight & so, not requiring a replacement rear sight, it was already sighted in. The lack of the S on a genuine rifle therefore suggests that it came with an incorrect (eg Mk2 'battle sight') rear sight & so would need re-sighting in after sniper conversion. All of this is in Peter's book, I think.

The non-converted 1945 receiver I have is either a V or X prefix & as well as the D6E stamp also bears the TR mark, though it has been officially cancelled. The inconsistency seems to occur in that, if the D6E was only ever applied at the end of the conversion process to indicate the examiner had accepted into service a satisfactorily converted rifle, then we cannot really explain these anomalous rifles. This was why I thought out loud that could Mr Hardwick have changed his working practice at some point in the production history, & started marking the rifle bodies when they arrived at H&H & not upon completion of the conversion.....just a thought.

Peter knows more about the conversion process than anyone else that I know of, so I'd be very keen to get his take on it all.

[Frederick303]

Being more interested in the Enfield competitive side of things, let me put this hypothesis forward:

England was in a virtual depression after WWII. Business was not good. All of the manufacturers were looking for work and sales. There were food shortages and sorts of restrictions on imports based on currency issues.

Now unlike now, in this period the permitting of rifles arms was fairly liberal. The combination of returning vets, Homeguard use and wide distribution of arms meant it was not hard at all to get a permit to own one or two service rifles, if you used them in competition. A lot of the Homeguard and returning vets were interested in competitive shooting, it was cheap to do, and the material was available for low cost from the army. The sale of No4 rifles was allowed around 1946 and competitive sights were set up by both AJ parker and Parker Hale in 1946 and 1947 respectively.

In order to use a service rifle in a match, it had to have the "government viewers mark" which certified the arm was to government standards. In each of the "Bisley bibles" I have from 1904 to the late 1960s, this requirement is stated.

So I would suggest this might be a rifles set up for sale just after the war, either by H&H or BSA for competitive shooting. At that time there was no allowance for any bedding but the front loaded bearing, so you would not be able to tell if it was set up for this by any internal bedding variations. In the Parker Hale catalogs from just after the war, there are indicating of like new rifles being available.

[SpikeDD]

I wasn't able to add this to the original post for some reason.... right side butt socket.

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