Late war H&H T furniture

[Alan de Enfield]

I am currently working on this so here is what I found. BSA seems to have had multiple assembly lines working that were assigned certain s/n blocks.

AV prefix rifles are found with both 1943 and 1944 dates.
AX prefix rifles are found with 1943 dates.
no prefix rifles in the 3XXXX are found with 1943 and 1944 dates.

I have yet to find an AY or AZ prefix.

So, you have a AV3470 1944 and an AV3602 1943

Here is an AV3536 1943

[Roger Payne]

Thanks for that Lance. We seem to have drawn broadly the same conclusions! And I am speaking from memory, which is often faulty - it could well have been an AV prefixed rifle that was dated 1944. Interesting that you have not come across any AY or AZ rifles either.....

The multiple production lines each with allocated batches of rifles for conversion to 4T would explain the blurring of the change overs.

Out of interest I have only seen one R prefix 1944 dated rifle, most being 1945's.

[Lance]

Greetings Roger

From my "bank" the year change appears to have happened around R35000. I do not have any R34000 rifle photo's so it might have happened there!

[CINDERS]

The socket stampings on mine for the records. F38752/AK & S 16684

[Roger Payne]

Thanks for the clarification. I've also owned a 1945 P prefix.

Probably, as we said, more than one production line in operation at any given time. Discrepancies might also arise if rifle bodies were finished & lying about for some reason for a while before markings were completed. (The factory markings & date are in a different font to the serials....).

[EnfieldC]

[QUOTE=Roger Payne;526978]They may exist, but I've never seen British produced cheekpieces in walnut, only Canadian. I have examples of UK cheekpieces in beech (the most common), birch (usually noticed on early conversions such as Trials & Savage rifles), & ash (usually on later war BSA Shirley rifles). Ash cheekpieces are sometimes stained quite dark, but equally are sometimes found in their pale natural wood colour. However, beech seems the most common generally. It's also difficult to be too dogmatic about it as rifles were often in service a long time & could easily have had replacement cheekpieces fitted over the years.......

From what I have read & learnt from Peter when he was researching the book the woodwork & furniture was tagged with the rifle serial number in order to ensure that it was refitted to the correct rifle once the conversion to T was completed.

P.S. Indeed H&H were not paid to swap over foresight blocks from the solid to the screw type, but in practice the requirements were relaxed when it came to foresight blocks, & many later rifles have the solid type. There is also a sub-group of 1943 rifles that bear Savage produced Mk1 (M) rear sights. This was long presumed to be because these rifles arrived at H&H as acceptable for conversion, but with the wrong rear sights. Rather than reject them a replacement 'Singer' sight was permitted. I had noted a small number of such rifles, all '43 dated, & then a while back another forummer found a documented reference to the supply of sights of Savage manufacture to H&H for this very purpose.


I have a 1944 T with a Savage rear sight. Is this likely a leftover part or a piece fitted by an armorer later? It appears to be a very early 1944 rifle. Thank you for your detailed input on the matter.

[Brian Dick]

Savage not only sent complete rifles but tons of spares to England during the war years. I've seen a few Savage Mk.1 rear sights converted for the No.4T on rifles, especially 1944 production which were the largest quantity by year.

[Roger Payne]

Rifles that were otherwise suitable for T conversion but which arrived at H&H with the 'wrong' rear sights would have had a replacement fitted. IIRC Mk VII discovered a document concerning exactly this - the supply of Savage Mk1 rear sights to be used as replacements by H&H. I have noticed a number of 1943 dated BSA 4T's with Savage sights fitted, though I cannot recall seeing any 1944's - but if Brian has that's good enough for me. It follows, & is the case with the rifles I have owned or seen personally, that the 'S' on the cut-off block was missing, as these rifles with replacement rear sights were going to need re-zeroing once converted. The presence of the cut-off block 'S' indicates a rifle has its original rear sight on it still & so does not need re-zeroing (after 4T conversion at H&H). If a rifle has the cut-off block 'S' & also has a Savage rear sight, then I suspect it is quite likely the sight has been fitted as a replacement by an armourer or during a refurb at some point in its life.

[Surpmil]

The problems arise when we find unconverted TR marked bodies/receivers with the "S" and both Enfield examiner's marks....I have one here.

[Roger Payne]

Yes, I have a V prefix 1945. They are not common, but not unknown........

Addendum: I suppose it just suggests that the sight 'problem' was rectified in the first instance.......but then subsequent machining of the receiver & fitting of pads was not proceeded with.
Also odd how they bear the D6E examiner's mark. One would expect it to be applied at the end of the conversion process.....but perhaps by then things were getting a bit lax???