No4 + No8 wood = enfield plus.

[RJW NZ]

An otherwise sensible kiwi friend gets his kicks from making these very very nice rifles by combining no4 enfields with no8 .22 wood sets. These wood sets are not common but as a bunch came on the market in NZ last year they trickle to the USA every now and then.
Anyway, here's Chris's comments, and I'll leave the pics to tell the story.

'Well I'm very flattered with all the fuss & of course you have my permission to use any photos etc.
Its quite opportune at the moment as I'm on holiday this week, so I have had the time to dismantle the rifle again & take some more photos of it (which are attached).

The whole conversion only took a weekend to complete and (from memory) the hardest part was the removal of the wood below the bolt to allow the mag assy to fit. I just used the trigger guard as a template & then using firstly a router then wood rasp & then sandpaper. I finished the internal modified area off with some matching wood stain.
The butt required almost no modification to fit to the action...apart from the fitting of the rubber butt pad. With the pad being slightly thicker than the original that came with the stock, it has totally transformed the whole feel of the rifle compared to the .22 No8 rifles I have used.

After re-assembling the rifle today, I thought I would put a few more rounds through it to just remind me of how good it actually shoots...(as maybe I was just dreaming?) and sure enough it's still very good!

The reasons being thats its a very good combination...the comfortable triangular sectioned fore-wood, the butt stock with a cheek rest & semi pistol type grip and the addition of the rubber butt pad (compared to the brass or alloy type normally fitted to a No4) and also the benefit of the half stock for both good overall balance and reducing weight.
I believe both the .308" L39A1 and the L42A1 rifles used modified No8 stocks.
Regards
Chris

Information

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[Alan de Enfield]

Nice job - but - my thinking is if you saw that for sale somewere it would be considered a 'bubba' job.

Where is the line drawn between Bubba and an Enthusiast making 'improvements' ?

[RJW NZ]

A = When the hacksaw comes out. That'd do it for me...

I've seen this mod done and discussed online several times in the last 6 months, and have puzzled over the enthusiasm expressed by them doing it, until that is I picked one up and handled it. There's a neat sense of balance entirely absent in a stock no4 and that combined with the new butt drop angle and high comb make for a rifle that feels right.

As always I wouldn't say its gods gift or anything, take to your numbers 4's and change them, what I would say though is if you're rescuing a sporterized rifle or playing around with something no longer militarized or missing its wood set completely, then this was a very nice end result. It's sort of A1A'ish.

[Peter Laidler]

This combination was tried on the L42 and mentioned in the little book but the snipers hated it. The rifle sat in the palm of the hand with the No8 fore-end whereas the old No4 fore-end was gripped around it with the hand.

I have to ask this though. How do you dampen the imortant barrel vibrations with the short fore-end. We used to use this sort of exercise as student projects at Shrivenham and shortened fore-ends weren't condusive to accurate military rifles.

On the other side of the fence though, the No8 fore-end was relaxed at the training regiments so that modified/shortened No4 fore-ends could be fitted together with No4 butts so that the No8 rifle '.... more truly represents the service rifle with which they will be equipped in the future...' so the modification instruction says. I only ever saw these modified No8 rifles at Houndstone Camp in Yeovil but never in civilian hands. I was told that these modified No8/No4 look-alikes were later converted to 120mm tank sub calibre insert rifles.............

[RJW NZ]

I'll be darned, I wouldn't have expected that a precedent existed.

As far as accuracy goes so far I've seen no comments that these 4/8's are the bees knees at the range, which I guess is no surprise, and the hunting blokes around here seem quite happy with their cut back enfields. What I've heard is that a lot of NZ deer hunting is close range, in which case a widened spread would only have a slight effect...that is until they tried a 400 yard shot and now their spread becomes wider than the animal.
Some hunters here take their science of shooting very seriously and their comments about accurizing are great to read up on, but most seem to be hunting with a backpack in close brush, so the weight of the gun becomes a factor and then one shoots basically when the deer is nearly stepped on, so they never really notice their reduced accuracy.

A NZ book thats been a bible in our family for over 20 years is 'The Sharp Shooter' by Matt and Bruce Grant. Its a local deer hunting book but covers the intricacies of accurizing and all else in great detail, highly recommended.

[S-A-M3]

As you know Roger ,I have fitted a few No8 forends on to No4`s converted to
308, and there is a bit more work than Chris is saying. In particular there has to be a piece of wood glued into the No8 forend for recoil lugs. this is quite time consuming, if you want to get a good wood to metal fit.
Stuart.

[MAXIMUM ARMOR]

As you know Roger ,I have fitted a few No8 forends on to No4`s converted to
308, and there is a bit more work than Chris is saying. In particular there has to be a piece of wood glued into the No8 forend for recoil lugs. this is quite time consuming, if you want to get a good wood to metal fit.
Stuart.

I just did one myself for my target rifle it took me 6 hours all together the only other thing i had to do was some ex fitting to my barrel because it is 7/8 x 30 instead of 3/4 x 27.5. Power tools speed things up but i had to file & sand by hand for final fitting. It had a nice tight fit first try you can say i had fun doing it and would do it again. MAX

[MAXIMUM ARMOR]

This combination was tried on the L42 and mentioned in the little book but the snipers hated it. The rifle sat in the palm of the hand with the No8 fore-end whereas the old No4 fore-end was gripped around it with the hand.

I remember talking to you through e-mail about this after asking about a forestock you had for sale on evilbay you were saying these rifles were never fitted to this forestock type i am confused did i miss understand what was said

[Peter Laidler]

Maximum, the ISSUED L42 rifles were never fitted with a No8 fore-end. The rifles used during the trials had various combinations of this that and the other. That's what trials are for........... or am I missing something?

Some of the rifles on trial also had the telescopes rotated through 90 degrees to establish whether the snipers would prefer the deflection drum on the right hand side instead of the left, where it remained as a reminder of its Bren ancestry

[Strangely Brown]

L39's are (and were) regulary encountered with No 8 butts; the higher comb combined with an AJ Parker 4/47 twin zero or P-H5C seem to be the right composition for a comfortable head postition for TR use.

Can anybody tell me if RSAF Enfield Lock actually put this compostion together towards the end of the L39 production run?