Long Branch TP Sniper

[Promo]

Had this rifle for some time now, but had not earlier managed to take pictures. There is not much written and documented on those, but it looked good to me and a fellow member here also told me that it looks like his rifle... so I went for it and bought it!

Any additional information on it is highly appreciated, like if I can find out more based on the serial number, etc.?


Edit: re-uploaded gone pictures 2nd June 2023.

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.

[Seaforth72]

Congratulations Promo. I do not see any problems with it, nor do I have any concerns about it.

I too have a matching numbers Long Branch “Trade Pattern” No.4 Mk.I* (T) set like this, numbered 20 before yours. I have a correct, but mismatched, C No.18 Mk. I steel scope case for the Lyman scope and a Canadian No.15 Mk.I chest with correct 1950s Canadian NATO markings. A friend living nearby also has a matching “Trade Pattern” set which is, like yours, in excellent condition. He has the matching C No.18 Mk.I scope case and Canadian No.15 Mk.I chest.

These Trade Pattern No.4 Mk.I* (T) sniper 74Lxxxx serial number sets are extremely rare as they, along with the No.4 Mk.I* (T) 80L8xxx serial number series equipped with C No.67 Mk. I scopes, remained in service post-WWII with the Canadian Army, being used in the Korean War and in the late 1940s and 1950s in Canada. Sadly most of the above two types appear to have been destroyed either in Canada or in the Netherlands (where some were sent as NATO aid apparently).

By the way, we now know that 350 of the Trade Pattern sniper rifles were made, not the 100 as reported in some earlier publications.

---------- Post added at 06:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:54 PM ----------


https://i2.wp.com/captainstevens.com...Korean-War.jpg
Two Canadian snipers in Korea. The one on our left has a Canadian made No. 4 MK.I* (T) with a Canadian R.E.L. made C No. 67 MK. I scope. The man on the right has a Canadian made No. 4 MK. I*(T) Trade Pattern with U.S. made Alaskan No. 32 TP MK. I scope. (Library and Archives Canada PA-213879)

A photo of my Trade Pattern sniper side by side with that of my friend, is on my web site at https://captainstevens.com/military/...-sniper-rifle/

An excellent photo set about 74L0318 is on Milsurps.com at http://imageevent.com/badgerdog/cana...o4mk1tp74l0318

[Sunray]

The 'ENGLAND' on the socket is an export stamp. Has nothing to do with usage. Means the rifle was sold through there. Should have the 'BNP' stamps on the barrel too.

[Seaforth72]

The McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 required goods being imported into the USA to be marked with their country of origin. The ENGLAND stamp strongly suggests to me that this rifle left Canadian service, ended up in British service, and was sold surplus from there. ENGLAND was stamped on many Lee-Enfields in the UK regardless of whether they were made in England, Canada (Long Branch) or the USA (Stevens-Savage). This caused a problem for a friend who repatriated a Canadian Long Branch made sniper rifle to Canada and the importer marked it on the paperwork as "Made in England" instead of "Made in Canada, even though they knew it was Canadian made, because it was stamped ENGLAND. This resulted in needless extra costs for the purchaser. The ENGLAND stamp is not seen on Lee-Enfields sold surplus out of the Canadian military directly as I far as I know.

I would be very interested to know which country this rifle turned up in as it is now in Austria I believe.

[Roger Payne]

I don't know precisely how this rifle would have come to acquire its 'England' stamp, but I don't think any TP rifles were ever on issue to British units; it would have represented a most unwelcome logistical situation. I've always been under the impression that they, along with the CNo67 bearing rifles, were set up for specifically Canadian requirements, there being a shortfall in the production of the correct optical glass to make the lenses for regular No32 scopes. This was not a problem in the UK. Many Lee Enfield Rifles that turn up nowadays, including rifles photographed & shown on this forum, bear British civvy proofs & the 'England' stamp, but before the days of political correctness, huge quantities of firearms were surplussed & travelled through the UK on their way to wherever (mostly the US market). Interarms alone must have accounted for an awful lot......

Addendum - & the late Pete Bloom turned up 30 TP scopes with their mounts (rings not bases) from the Dutch surplus market in the 1990's. Sadly the Dutch destroyed the rifles.

[browningautorifle]

I had one of these rifles come to me in Gagetown New Brunswick at the big base when I was employed in the Small Arms School there. It was destined for the sniper cell for whatever purpose and was as new condition... The optic was the same as the OP's and had the original canvas fishmouth case and transit box... The furniture was blonde and without marks or dings. The optic had been painted olive drab. The bore was perfect and looked like polished chrome. The bolt face was polished perfectly and unmarked.

I wish I'd taken note of the serial numbers on everything then...I know the number resembled the OPs rifle, lots of zeros, low number.

[Surpmil]

IIRC all the Long Branch No.4 production was on British contracts as our government foolishly agreed to accept what was divvied out to them from London rather than supplying our own forces directly as we did, at least initially in WWI. So, the rifles and vast amounts of other equipment were made here, shipped there, and eventually found their way to Canadian forces overseas when the War Office saw fit to issue it to them through their own supply chains. There were no doubt some exceptions to this policy, and the No.4(T)s that Warren mentioned were air-freighted in new-built bombers to the UK were perhaps one of those.

Either supply from UK production was insufficient, or the Ministry of Supply(?) simply wasn't releasing equipment, so the air-freight operation may have been mounted to get the Canadian divisions properly equipped before they went to Italy in mid-1943. As it was, they either weren't fully equipped with No.4(T)s or they chose to take the P14's with WW1 Warner & Swasey scopes with them anyway; my bet would be they weren't fully equipped even then. The preferable interpretation would be that H&H production simply wasn't enough to supply all that was required. The less pleasant scenario would involve REMFs who wouldn't issue what was already in store somewhere. We discussed this before here.

So, that was a long way round to the point that in 1943 and even 44, there was plenty of odd stuff still in service like Alex Martin No.3 Mk.I.*(T) rifles and the TP setups like this one would have been nothing much out of the ordinary, indeed they would have been considered preferable to the miscellaneous collection of WWI scopes in offset, non-removable mounts fitted to the Alex Martin jobs.

The odd thing is, that the Lyman Alaskan was only accepted as a substitute for R.E.L. No32s when production priorities caused their supply to fall behind, and yet, based on scope serial numbers, dates and other info reproduced in the thread linked above, there must have been at least 5000 No.32 MkI scopes in store in the UK in 1943, awaiting fitment to rifles! As H&H was apparently converting about 200 rifles a month, not the 800 mentioned in their contract, the surplus scopes might as well have been shipped to Long Branch for fitting up there. But many odd things are done by bureaucracies, even in wartime!

It looks like in the event these were never issued during the war and sat in store until they were presumably returned to Canada in whole or in part, after WWII. Perhaps by the time they arrived in the UK, the supply of No.4(T)s had caught up and those were the preferred issue for reasons of standardization? Canada supplied large amounts of new and refurbed equipment to various NATO allies after WWII, including the Dutch so their's might have come from the UK or Canada AFAIK.

That's a fine example Promo, congrats!

[Peter Laidler]

The snipers that came over for training from the newly formed European armies all seemed to come with these TP type rifles and they couldn't be integrated into the courses for logistical and technical reasons. The snipers were usually returned home with new issued No4T/No32 rifles that they'd completed the courses with. Notes record that Belgium and Holland were large recipients of the TP's.

[Brian Dick]

I'd say it was surplused out of one of the two countries mentioned by Peter through Interarms in Manchester to Alexandria, Virginia as Roger says prior to 1968. The US import marking requirements changed that year and it became a country of manufacture stamp rather than country of origin. The majority were sent to Europe as military aid post WWII. I was told by the late Harry Toye that the sniper course at CFB Borden also culled them for the same reasons as the British Army did when students arrived with them.

[#1oilman]

Harry was a real gentleman, I had him as a supply teacher in high school and range instructor back when they taught marksmanship in school. With his military connections we got to shoot at several military rifle ranges for fun and competition, whenever we shot at a military range he always treated us to a demonstration of one of his fine collection be it a Snider Enfield, Brown Bess or whatever. He carried himself like a soldier, bolt upright and shoulders back till the day he died.