L42A1 bolt head question

[chosenman]

FWIW PL I stand by my post (#6), & await the definitive with bated breath!

Roger, I completely agree with your post #6. Fitting 70's mass produced barrels onto 40's mass produced bodies will have almost certainly thrown up a - + window resulting in a variance of the head space.

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[Peter Laidler]

Fear not DRP or Chosenman. But the facts are this. No L42 or L39 got out of the factory using a No3 bolthead (the b/h). I know that there are others more versed in the art than me that will say they did, but believe me, they didn't. The only place a No3 b/h was acceptable was at unit level. If it got to a Field workshop with a No3 b/h, they'd move heaven and earth with stocks of No2 b/h's - given the large variations in length, over and underturn to send it out with the correct CHS AND a No2 b/h. If not, it was the chop. Why sell a restored car with 100,000 miles on the engine?

There was never a No4 b/h in UK Military service. They have been noted BUT there was Never a No4 in the parts list, EMER or the intermediate wartime SAI's issued to quartermasters. It is correct that some rifles were allowed to pass into service with a specially ground 00 size b/h. This was a factory acceptable relaxation for those tight bodies that otherwise passed all of the factory specification/standard

As for selectively fitting barrels to ensure that the rifle went out with a 0 b/h........ all I can say, rolling my eyes skywards in despair, is this. Just think about it........... In short, you'd need barrels in the system to cater for bodies that would exceed the 3 b/h size too. NOPE, just one barrel and chamber spec if you don't mind - please!!!!! You can't fix a clapped body with an oversize barrel.

A minor correction here if you don't mind. Generally speaking, the sniper rifle was a one man dog and it stayed that way for obvious reasons and in my experience, the snipers could tag on to a shooting detail at a unit range day just to keep his/their skills up so at the unit levels, the rifles never really got flogged to death. I know that they'd allow others on the range day to use them for interest or farmiliarisation and all that but really, it was to chuckle when the novice smart-arxe NCO who knew everything was showing off to the blokes and split his eye while he did so - to everyones amusement!

But if at unit level, something went wrong with the rifle, it was generally two things (plus a third but not too common) that the Unit Armourers were required to send it into the Field or Command workshops for. And that was loose front pad or loose block band foresight. In these most common cases, by tacit agreement between them, the rifle went in on its own, less the CES, to be repaired. This was because once the faults were fixed (you'd do both at the same time anyway), the rifle had to be zeroed. The re-zeroing would be so minor that it could be done by the sniper! In any case, when ANY sniper rifle was returned to a unit the 1045 was endorsed with 'SNIPER RIFLE - TO BE FINALLY ZEROED BY THE END USER' or ZEROING IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE END USER. So fine zeroing would be done by the sniper as a good excuse and authority to tag onto a range day with his pal for some pretty-well unsupervised 'range practice' .

Inaccuracy was down to the poor quality of the fore-ends and when these became 'dues-out' ('temporarily' out of stock big time!) then the rifle was BLR/Z and returned to Ordnance and a replacement was issued

From this, you can see that in my opinion the same rifles stayed with their same home units for a LONG time. And if the regiment was posted to, say, Germany, they'd take over the weaponry from the unit they were taking over from and so on*. Obviously at the different training centres where the snipers were trained and tested, the rifles there were shot to death and the attrition rate was pretty bleak as you'd expect from vehicles used in cross country driver training.

I should clarify a small point and I know it's a tad academic but when a rifle, let's say our L42 is inspected at workshops and a fore-end or something else is NLA or Dues-Out, then the rifle will go back to the unit as Z-BLR**. It would not sit for more than a couple of weeks at a workshop awaiting spare parts believe me..... The Z-BLR paperwork would be the signal and authority for the Quartermaster to demand a replacement from Ordnance. The replacement issue would arrive at the same time as a 'calling-in notice' for the Z-BLR rifle which would be packed up and returned to a RSSD. More to it than that of course but notice that because the rifle is Z-BLR, it'd be set aside for repair at a later date. A good example of this is shortly after the introduction of the L96's that were withdrawn, L42's were rebuilt where possible and retained '........pending'. Luckily for some current L42 owners, new brackets were obtained to rebuild these otherwise soon to be scrap rifles. Whereas a rifle sentenced Z-BER for beyond economic repair for, for example, elongated/knackered front pad screw holes would go straight for the chop.

*not absolutely correct of course, depending on circumstances
** and Z-BER usually stripped of anything useful and shipped back to Ordnance. Plenty of these stripped heaps of sxxx were sold off, believe me!

[chosenman]

Well, I'm no wiser! I stand by the original. It wouldn't be manditory at the time of conversion to of had a 0 head fitted. However, I'm better placed to speak about the life of an L42. From personal experience I can say my battalion in the eighties of which possessed eight rifles never had the same rifles from one month to the next. Only just before xmas I was chatting with an old mucca and looking at a set of pictures from back in the day. The pics were taken over a three year period and my mate was pictured with around six different rifles. I would imagine the SOI's turnover was just the same. Also as previously mentioned the battalion ran its own sniper cadre every year which obviously involved some intense range work. In short they were all pretty well battered!

[Peter Laidler]

I just say it as it applied to me as the snipers Armourer in the mid 60's and much later, well into the L42 era and having wisely learned the wily ways of the Quarternastering system. Sniper div turnover was severe especially at the later part of its life - split probably 50-50 between rifles and telescopes either worn-out, dues-out and clapped-out!

I was a bit perplexed at the thought of sniper rifles being turned over as frequently as described. I know only too well how well battered they were later in their lives, but this frequent turnover just doesn't ring true. I appreciate that I'm not the brightest light in the box when it comes to the field service part of Army life....., being more of a technical man and all that. But a sniper rifle would seem to be a pretty important part of a snipers main reason for being a, er........, sniper! Much like a sheep dog is a pretty important part of being a shepherd sort of way. If the poor shepherd didn't know what sheep dog he was going to get from one month to the next, well....., we wouldn't be eating a lot of lamb or mutton would we? One man dog and all that stuff. If a sniper had his rifle changed on a regular basis what'd be the point of having them. Like the shepherds dog. If it needed the chop, then it gets the chop but 2 rifles a year written off or even exchanged for some reason or another, per sniper, per year in that one example is an awful lot of rifles.

[gundoc2112]

Thank you all that weighed in. Whilst I have seen much discussed of bolt heads in .303 rifles, have seen little discussed on the L42. Very much appreciated.