re: Why no Canadian No.4 MK1/2 Trigger conversion

[x westie]

The British Army must of did a fair bit of testing with their No.4 mk1 rifles, and were not satisfied with the trigger pinned to the trigger guard,and had conversions done, ..wood swelling gave a inconsisent trigger pull off, correct me if im wrong,...was this due to the British Army serving in tropical climates where the weather is much different from Europe...and this problem arose,..also Canada never did convert its No.4 mk1* as the Brits..hope somebody can help..thanks for your input

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[Thunderbox]

AFAIK the story about wood swelling and subsequent poor trigger action is largely myth - after all, millions of rifles were made, trialled, and used all over the world, and it wasn't found necessary to action-hang the triggers for the first seventy years of production. The wood used in Enfields was seasoned - naturally or by kiln - and thus is fairly impervious to change. I have never actually encountered a rifle where the wood has "shrunk" or "swelled" anywhere near enough to affect trigger action, and doubt that this condition ever really existed.


IIRC the action-hung trigger merely simplifies the assembly process - particularly on rifles that are being built for store. I don't think it is any coincidence that many/most "new in wrap" No4 Mk2s don't appear to have had their forends properly fitted. I expect that the Mk2 was developed simply to enable Fazakerly to throw together thousands of rifles without bothering to use skilled fitting of the forend.

[Peter Laidler]

Thunderbox has stolen my thunder if you'll excuse the pun! But he's done it in fewer words that I'd have done and without me going off at a tangent too.

The conversion was to make assembly simpler and the fact that adjusting the trigger pull-off need only be done once (although it'd be done in sewrvice to cater for the vagaries of service life of course.......) but it also meant that the job could be de-skilled and therefore speed-up production because every time a trigger was adjusted and re-adjusted and re-adjusted - time and time again......, the fore-end had to come off, and on, and off again and every time it did, it was knocked backwards by the DRIFT, Armourers No1.

The skilled fitters that used to do the job on the Mk1's had the front trigger guard screw brazed to a shaft that had a tommy bar at the end and a push-through steel rod that would act as the rear screw so that they could speed up the job.

Anyway, it was all to do with skilled workers on weekly pay and the unskilled on piece work.

Like TBox says, the trigger guard method had been good enough for 70 years before that but they weren't counting on the rebellious agitated and highly unionised Liverpool labour force then!

[breakeyp]

Apparently Long Branch did some work with non standard No.4 trigger systems. I have posted pictures of my Long Branch No.4 Mk1 or 1* (I will have to go look) (T) with a unique trigger. It came from Texas where a former Long Branch employee retired. He must have taken parts home abuilt the rifle up after retirement. I suspect he was an engineer and had the action in his desk for talking points. He had the G&H mounts and while he got an Alaskan scope he got the wrong company. I can try and find the pictures if there is any interest. Skennerton has a sketch in one book and I believe pictures in the last.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Breakeyp:

That would be the Long Branch J5550 beast, with its one-piece stock.

The trigger in that rifle is essentially a variation on the Mauser 98 trigger. I have had my sticky paws on one of the examples floating around and it is quite cleverly done. The engineers had to insert a hardened plate in the underside of the receiver body for the "bumps" on the trigger to engage.

The only reason for doing all this was that the receiver of the J5550 series had no butt socket nor even a residual "leg" from which to hang the trigger.

It was all a bit of a lemon because the quest for extreme lightness meant that the one-piece stock was about as robust as a toothpick, especially at the rear of the action area / stock wrist. See pictures on pages 322 to 326 of Skennerton's "The Lee Enfield" epic tome.

I think I opined once before, that if the designers had left a narrow leg like an SKS, they could have hung the trigger like a Mk2, had a structure to transfer the substantial recoil a bit more elegantly and had a slightly less fragile stock. However, is is merely an academic exercise now.

There were certainly a few custom sporters built with one-piece stocks. Do any forumers have any experience with such things?

[breakeyp]

No it is not a one piece design. Think normal No.4 with all the speical bits internal.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

OK, I found a picture on Page 249 of "The British Service Lee" (1982) book by Mr. Skennerton.

Yep, it shows a very different trigger on a No4, but it is captioned as a "Stevens-Savage Trigger improvement". It seems that six of these rifles were assembled, probably in 1943, and were forwarded to Canada on completion of the Stevens-Savage contract.

My scanner seems to have had a brain-snap. However, I will attempt to post this pic and the one of the J5550 for comparison, either after resuscitation or replacement of said toy. If anyone else has the books and a functioning scanner, go for it.

[Mk VII]

Canada wasn't contemplating making any more of them, and didn't incorporate any of the post-war British modifications once the Korean War meant that all the mobilisation stores that had just been scrapped had to be hurriedly replaced again. The 1950s ones looked pretty much identical to the last WW2 ones, even down to the stamped parts and bent metal sight that lasts about five minutes before the catch breaks. At one point they were looking at buying a load of M1s from the US (who would have been ready to sell) and then, when they started looking at FAL clones, there was even less point spending money on updating obsolete Enfields.

[LesterH]

Just to confirm Thunderboxes post. I have a D/A 1944 Longbranch No4 MK1*/2. Stamping is (FTR)F48. Which I understand to be an upgrade at Fazakerly. Enfield stamped new woodwork was fitted as well. Then it apprears to have gone into BA storage. Near the front sight there are some new parts stamped 1967. This rifle was D/A in 2006 by Terry Abram. Nice to have an old rifle that you can just about trace it's history. Due to the method of deactivation I can't see if it still has the original two groove barrel but it still has a LB stamped steel butt plate.

Kind regards, Lester

[A square 10]

but ...perhaps im way off base here , but , wouldnt the conversion of the mkI* be a /3 ?