Newly bought 1943 T sniper.

[Brian Dick]

No, mine would be FPD = Full Blown Personality Disorder

---------- Post added at 05:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:55 PM ----------

Comes from years of doing import/export work with firearms!

[Seaforth72]

A little bit of history on your rifle. When I went to enter the info on it into my database on these No. 4 T rifles, I found it was already listed. The serial number appears to be AQ6542. If so, then that is one of the rifles used by the British in trials. It appears about halfway down the list on page 48 of Peter Laidler's excellent book "AN ARMOURER'S PERSPECTIVE."

[Roger Payne]

Yes, American black walnut came across to the UK by the ship load to be made into stocks for No4's during WW2. Most (pretty well all??) of the commonly encountered dark wood on 1943 to 1945 era rifles is of North American origin. This includes all those nice SL/N74, HM/N49, & JC/N22 marked butts, forends & guards seen on BSA Shirley 4T's. We'd already denuded the New Forest to build the ships to fight Napoleon, so I don't know how we'd have got on during WW2 without the supplies from across the pond.

[Seaspriter]

Yes, American black walnut came across to the UK by the ship load to be made into stocks for No4's during WW2. Most (pretty well all??) of the commonly encountered dark wood on 1943 to 1945 era rifles is of North American origin. This includes all those nice SL/N74, HM/N49, & JC/N22 marked butts, forends & guards seen on BSA Shirley 4T's. We'd already denuded the New Forest to build the ships to fight Napoleon, so I don't know how we'd have got on during WW2 without the supplies from across the pond.

Thanks Roger & Brian. This is a great story, one that has seemingly gone unnoticed. We know that the Long Branch and Savage Stevens guns switched to maple and birch early in the war. So the walnut must have been used for the M-1 series and the rest to the mother land. Keep these tidbits coming.

[bigduke6]

My money is on birch.

Its definitely walnut, but its not Savage my mistake.

[Peter Laidler]

The same American black walnut came here in billetted blocks and was made into Mk2 Bren gun butts by Tibbenhams at Ipswich. They also made hundreds of thousands of No1 rifle bayonet grips too - and Mk5 Sten gun butts - and..........

[Z28addiction]

A little bit of history on your rifle. When I went to enter the info on it into my database on these No. 4 T rifles, I found it was already listed. The serial number appears to be AQ6542. If so, then that is one of the rifles used by the British in trials. It appears about halfway down the list on page 48 of Peter Laidler's excellent book "AN ARMOURER'S PERSPECTIVE."

Yes that is the serial number on my rifle. What does that mean that it was used in trials? Very awesome tho that's really cool!

[Z28addiction]

Just ordered peters book. Really looking forward to reading it!

[ssj]

I will throw my 2cents in.

I would suggest you get a good quality repo scope bracket and a decent quality modern hunting scope to go in it for now if you want to shoot it. That way you get to really enjoy shooting the gun.

Frankly I've looked at the repo scopes (and the russian ones for the Mosin) and I would class them as little more than junk, I wouldnt waste my money. Unless its going to be a wall hanger.

I would then save for the real thing. Plus Peter L can repair them but I am not sure just how far he can recover a stuffed scope? he maybe know what the limit is. There is no one else I'd trust to go near one myself.

[Z28addiction]

Yea I purchased a repro scope and a weaver k3 scope with proper reticle. It deff looks the part and will get me through till I find a real one.