no 4 mk1 restoration

[Peter Laidler]

Ribbed or plain rear handguards were not differently identified to us Armourers. They were all the same and equally at home on any mark/type of rifle. Non ribbed introduced in 1942 along with flat head (instead or radiussed head) handguard cap rivets by the Committee for the simplification of small-arms design. Just another of the thousands of relaxations allowed. I'm bound to ask what the ribbed handguards were meant to achieve? Unless you had hands like dinner plates, your fingers would be hard pressed to even touch the ribbed surfaces