No. 4 MK 1/2 - Identification Help

[davidwrankin]

Can you show a picture of the barrel marks? I'd be interested in that.

That "No 4 Mk 1/2" looks like the "No 4 Mk 2" that was done to my gun somewhere in India (probably) or Ethiopia, not at Fazakerley. The FTR marks I've seen for Fazakerley are electropencil and a lot more compact & professional. Your stamp looks similar (but not identical) to mine: hand stampings from individual letter chisels. Too generic for someone wanting to fake factory marks, but too professional for a random Joe in the field.

I have an RTI No 4 Mk 2 that went the India to Ethiopia route. There's no documentation, but I have to assume that a gun "trader" bought a truckload (or boatload, etc.) of surplus Indian No 4s, and then shipped them to one side or the other of the Ethiopian civil war. Post-war, they got collected and stacked in the goat sheds.

With these guns, there's been so many opportunities for FTRs and so few remaining proof marks that we're never going to "know" the history of the guns. However, in their own way, they have their own mystery paths that make them interesting to me.

Not interesting enough to sent RTI any more money, mind you...

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