"ZF" marking on Enfields?

[jmoore]

You're a big help, Mr. Horton!


On the same subject, it would seem that the Indian Army painted "CON'D" on their No1 Mk III* buttstocks(attached to rifles) that were beyond repair, I've a pile at the house. Quite sad they are...

[Brian Dick]

One of my favorite rifles is marked ZF with a big nasty splotch of yellow paint on it. Peter was here and that's when I learned about it. It kind of broke my heart but he told to not dare touch it as it's just another day in the history of the weapon so it's still here and marked accordingly. The problem is the receiver/body is worn out and the right hand locking lug drags over the sear. I remember posting his findings and my new education on the old British Guns forum and I'd guess everyone was scrambling to check RH locking lugs on their bolts to see if the problem existed with any of their rifles! The education is endless.

[5thBatt]

Peter, i brought a 1941 Lithgow minus its bolt a few months back, came to the conclusion it was a 'scrapped' rifle by these marks, the only other mark i could find was a thin red line painted across the butt socket LHS & this came off when i cleaned it.
Was i correct? dont really matter if not, barrels stuffed & i sold the woodwork.

[Edward Horton]

You're a big help, Mr. Horton!

I know I’m a big help, but I just keep wondering why so many of my postings are “ZF”ed

[John R.]

No "umble" pie need be eaten.We are all together in our quest for knowledge I hope.Nuff said.See below Peter's quote for clarification.



"But now, it’s time to eat a bit of humble pie to JohnR. I said on a previous thread that what we call ‘the master component’ was NEVER available as a spare part. This was obviously to prevent a budding Armourer making up a rifle out of spare parts. I even related the story of Craftsman ‘Tiny’ Davidson in Malaya who did somehow manage something similar in Malaya with a No2 pistol and being caught with it in his locker by Sgt Doug Baker (later killed with 8-RAR in SVN). Doug told Johnny Cotterill, our Armourer Sergeant later ‘Tiny does 28 days in the can (as we called Holdsworthy Jail) or I lose my pension. It’s simple. Tiny does 28 days'! I have learned that at the big combined RCEME/REME workshops in WERL in Germany, Canadian No4 and Bren bodies were available as replacement parts but only from Canadian Ordnance. This was cut short very quickly but quite clearly, Canadian Ordnance did supply master components and I should imagine, was awash with unlawful weaponry……….. But not in the UK, Australia or New Zealand."



Peter Laidler[/QUOTE]

You are pretty much on the mark vis a vis Canadian military personnel being able to access "buckshee" small arms made up from either un-numbered spare parts OR parts that were written off as being"scrapped".I left Longue Pointe with 1)My PROJECT "do it properly or face execution" 1943 Dated No4MkI* with LONG buttstock and S/N JR-1,2) A 1946 dated C No7MkI* .22 S/N JR-2,3) a Winchester M1 Garand with a serial number I have long since forgotten.4) A M2 Carbine with NO full auto parts(all parts were brand new with the exception of the M2 stamped receiver which was the NICEST receiver the Boss could find in our stocks)5) A brand new and totally un-numbered No2MkI* Inglis Browning,and last but not least a M3"Grease Gun" Submachinegun that he had brought home from Korea and didn't want.Only that Grease Gun cost me a bottle.He ALSO drove me home to Beaconsfield and wound up staying for dinner with my folks with all the "swag" in the trunk of his car.We were SCRAPPING stuff on a daily basis and my being the bottom of the "food chain" in our shop;guess who got to fire up the torch and start cutting? The WOI's RULE was this"IF YOU WANT SOMETHING ASK ME".He KNEW that I was a gun nut in the making and so was he.Tommy Richardson from the Vics was my friend and mentor so I was a known quantity and a few regs got"bent".Not a big deal THEN but I shudder to think about now...ALL of the parts with the exception of the receivers,were "C" Class(no records kept in esssence)while the receivers were "A" Class and needed an authorized signature to be issued from the tool crib.I OBVIOUSLY didn't sign for the receivers either.Who was I? A 15 year old galley slave; to question my superiors ?

I think that MOST of us here are well past 40 and all will agree that the world was a MUCH BETTER PLACE circa 1957.Nobody in Canada at least got upset if you were seen walking down the Street(like Yonge St in Toronto at high noon)with a BRAND NEW 1953 Dated Lithgow NoIMkIII* slung over your shoulder with a breech cover on it and the bayonet reversed and taped to the nose cap and forend.I walked from 577 Yonge HERCULES SALES to Yonge and King and nobody blinked.Try THAT now and see what happens.....

As it is I ALSO was given a 1945 dated No4MkI* with a 1943 Serial number by our former Chief Provincial Firearms Officer and he told me that HE had assembled it from parts when he was in the Air Force.

I was later given a brand new Long Branch MkII Sten mag housing WITHOUT serial numbers and built it up and numbered it 200L0001 and registered it.
Toronto was AWASH(no joke) in NEVER NUMBERED INGLIS No2MkI* pistols of ALL flavours for $25 a pop when I was a sprat too.For some reason you could get ALL the 7.92 Inglis MkII Brens you ever wanted for about $50 but a .303" was damned near unobtainium.

I had a No4MkI*T converted to 7.62mm at Canadian Arsenals in 1966 AFTER a former friend TOTALLY ROTTED out the barrel by firing DA52 BERDAN primed"MATCH AMMO" and not cleaning it.Damn him anyway !!

Then again Long Branch would HAPPILY parkerize anything(like M1A1 Thompsons and M1918A2 BARs) you liked for a nominal sum IF you spoke to Art Sweeting and Col.Levins nicely.Hey,life was good;what can one say ?

When you think of some of what probably MOST of us have done way back in the dim dark past we are lucky that we aren't STILL in the DB.

Oneupmanship is thankfully something that is in VERY short supply herabouts and long may we all remain "Brothers in Arms".

Cheers,

John R.

[Peter Laidler]

Someone has asked on the PM what were the common causes of No1, 4 and 5body failures. One of the biggest was a worn sear stop that allowed the sear to rise too far into the body and foul the left (the lower or smaller) bolt locking lug. I've mentioned this before but you could line-punch the stop part of the body once but if it occurred again, that was a cause for it to be rejected. But on your private shooting rifle, would it really matter if you did it several/many times? I think not!

Another regular failure was a worn bolt guide in the body where the bolt fitted into the body 'like a sausage in the High Street' to use another technical phrase! There was a reject gauge for this but the acid test used by the In-Inspectors was to hold the rifle downwards, vertically and let the cocking piece rest on the sear......... then squeeze the first pull of the trigger (until it gets to the second pull). The bolt should not move up and down unduly. It's that ambiguous word again. What's unduly to one isn't particularly unduly to another so the reject gauge would come into play. Add to this the fact that a sloppy bolt will mean that you won't be able to get a good, crisp, consistent 2nd pull-off. That is an immediate failure on a No4T.

The not so obvious but Base repair reasons were stripped ejector and screw, spring, bolt locking threads but I have to say that I NEVER saw one. These would be bored out, a collar brazed in and re-tapped. But the other failure was the stripped screw front and rear trigger guard screws. I saw plenty of these and there was never a repair policy. That was an immediate ZF.

Failure to get CHS was a major fail point but we had a special calibrated bolt called 'BOLT, Inspectors' plus a calibrated No2 bolthead at Base workshops (kept in an oil box to prevent atmospheric damage). This was because we could only fit a No2 bolthead at Base workshops as a No3 meant that there was insufficient life left in the rifle. So, if there was any doubt, then we'd use the inspectors bolt and No2 gauge. We also had an metallurgy/test section at the big theatre workshops and at 40 Base, we had a old Izod impact tester to test the hardness of the locking shoulders on any that were going out on a No2 bolthead. Size 0 and 1 weren't subject to this test. Just a thought, but do you have these calibrated gauges to check your DP and ZF rifles against?

Obviously there were the damaged and distorted bodies. Paratroopers on P Company would/could damage them during arduous training but these rifles were all DP anyway

Mk1/1 and 1/3 bodies with torn boltway recesses were easily repaired and a common occurrence.

I suppose there were a few more uncommon causes that other Armourers had come across.

[Son]

I don't have either the "Bolt, Inspectors" or any way of testing surface hardness if locking lugs on my ZF No4. It has a matching bolt with No1 bolthead fitted and headspaces ok. Although it may not have been subjected to the above tests because of that, I had intended doing a close inspection of the lugs with a good magnifying glass and will check surface contact with marking blue.

[Brian Dick]

I said damaged right hand locking lug in my previous post and I stand corrected as it's the LH one as Peter says.

[Peter Laidler]

I should have mentioned that we used a 'BOLT, Gauge, Inspectors' and the associated bolt head simply to confirm thhat it was the body that was knacke.....er..., worn out as opposed to our tray of bolts. We'd occasionally be caught out, but inevitably the body was worn-out or ZF'd as we'd say in conversation

[jmoore]

The real drama that I see with using a "ZF'ed" rifle, is that the civilian user will never know the reason for the Reject. Could be stripped threads on the rear action screw (no safety issue there!), or the body could be completely beyond any hope of safely firing again.

Its not just Enfields either. The annual detail strip of my "mule" M1a rifle shows plenty of wear. As many rounds that have been through it, its no surprise, just something to recognize- You can wear this stuff flat out! And even if YOU didn't, well...