Longbranch No4 Mark I* 6 groove barrell

[Maygyver]

I have a No 4 Mk I* that went through an apparent arsenal rebuild in 1950. The rifle has matching bolt and receiver serial numbers, I've found the LB stamp on everyting but the trigger which is marked with a square shouldered 'S' (savage?). Both the receiver and the barrel have the Canadian acceptance stamp of the 'C' around a broad arrow. The barrell is blued, the receiver is parkerized, all the other parts appear to be blued. The odd part about the barrell is that it has 6 grooves instead of the 2 or 5 grooves that appears to be standard. I've attached images of the bore and the barrell markings. Does anyone have any insight on the 6 groove barrell? The flat on the top of the barrell is stamped 'CMK4' and there is a small diamond stamped about halfway to the muzzle.

Information

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[Lee Enfield]

I have C Mk4 barrels from 1949-1958 dated installed on various LB FTR'ed and newly manufactured rifles.

[vintage hunter]

Probably a Savage barrel. How does it shoot?

[XL39E1]

Long branch produced 6 groove barrels around 1950, these barrels were made on bren gun tooling. See Skennertons "The Lee Enfield" page 313!

[Brian Dick]

Definitely manufactured at CAL Long Branch. There'll be a little tiny "6" stamped on the bayonet lug too. They're not uncommon but not as common as the normal 1950's production five groove barrels. I think the rifling is the opposite twist from the five groovers too.

[vintage hunter]

Bout the time you start to think you're winning the rat race they come out with faster rats. Now I gotta find a 6 groove LB.

[Maygyver]

Indeed, there is a 6 stamped on the bayonet lug. I'm going to have to set up a decent rifle range and see just how this shoots. I got it nearly 20 years ago, spent a couple hours scraping cosmoline off it and fired a couple of test rounds through it to make sure it worked. All my rifles, guns and pistols were oiled up well, packed in crates and stored in my brothers basement since 1995 when the Army shipped me overseas. Been out of the Army for a few years but until now I never had room to unpack them. It's like Christmas in my house every week I pull another rifle off the rack and research it.

[Maygyver]

Okay, I set up a target at 100 feet and took 5 shots while standing and supporting the rifle on a pile of lumber. Considering the low light and my degrading eyesight I think it shot a rather nice group. Got one a little higher than the rest but the other four are grouped 3/4 inch wide and 1.5 inch tall. Sights are set like they were when I bought it. I think a good marksman, or even me at a benchrest and actually wearing my glasses, could have gotten a much tighter group than this.

[Brian Dick]

When I imported all of the Greek war reserve Long Branch rifles, there were 13 in the batch of 200 or so if I remember correctly. I sold the last one a couple of years ago.

[Peter Laidler]

We established during student projects that the amount of grooves didn't matter at all. 2, 5 or 6...., it was pretty well academic. What DID count was that the bullet was and remained stable in flight

\i forgot to add that it was critical that it remained spinning in flight too - but that is part of the stability issue