Welcome Home Shoot For No 4 T A1038

[chosenman]

Hi all, thought I would share this with the forum.

Back in April I saw a very nice Enfield No 4 Mk 1 T on a U.S. auction site which ended up being discussed here on the forum at length and was well received. Having had so many positive things being said about it, it made me sit up and take notice! This led me to buying the rifle and after a lengthy import process I recently took receipt.

A1038 started life in 1933 as a trials rifle and then was later selected to be configured to sniper. I'm presuming she served a hard life through the war years in full trials trim, at the end of which receiving an FTR bringing her up to full production rifle specification, retaining the mag cutoff. Again, its a presumption but the general condition would suggest A1038 went into post war storage and most likely sold to surplus in the sixties as one of probably a thousand rifles. The buyer I would imagine was a dealer such as Interarms or suchlike which is when A1038's journey to the U.S. took place.

Amazingly the rifle appears to be untouched and in the same condition as the day it was sold to surplus out of the military. Lets bear in mind now the rifle was stripped into pieces by the auction house and shipped across the States, reassembled and then delivered to Brian Dick in SC, who in turn shipped across the Atlantic to the UK where the rifle was handed across the counter to me and yesterday A1038 went back to the range firing its first round of ammunition on British soil, probably in seventy years. Also poignantly my journey to Bisley ranges takes me past Enfield. What a journey she has been on only to come full circle to where things began for A1038 eighty one years ago as a trials rifle.

Knowing what I did of the rifle back to the auction house and then nothing beyond that I expected to have some zeroing to do, however after a quick bore scope which looked ok I cracked on with a test shot.

I was absolutely amazed. The impact of the first cold shot at 300 yards fell just below the V bull. The rifle delivered every round in or next to the V bull all morning.

What a testament to the engineering of the day and the skills of the armourers who made this technology work!!

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