What type of No 4 sniper do I have?

[Roger Payne]

I agree entirely that the butt looks original & untouched, & I'm not disputing your reasoning, but the fact remains, at least in my experience, that few observed matching 4T's show such a marked discrepancy between the date of the rifle & the date of the scope where the scope is dated several years BEFORE the date of the rifle it is matched to. From what my faltering memory can recall, the date is usually the same year or the scope is dated later than the rifle. I'm not for one minute suggesting the other way round cannot occur, & we might indeed have an example here, but I have not noted it to be particularly commonplace. Perhaps all those mystery rifles were set up & then put into store???