Lee Enfield n°4(T) and Bipod

[Lou Cypher]

In this following book, full of nice stories, there is one by which we are concerned


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Shot at 2012-04-09
So, it's a book in French, in this book you have many stories about an object and the story of the man who had it during the battle of Normandy.
For us, mainly concerned by the n° 4(T), there is this story :

Shot at 2012-04-09
here is the translation,
Reunion, 54 years after
We are in October 1944. Many months elapsed since the end of the combats that occured in the wood of Bavent when a farmer finds, abandoned in a ditch nearby is house, a particular rifle. This is a Lee Enfield Rifle n°4 equipped with a bi-pod and scope that certainly belonged to a British or Canadian sniper. The farmer picked up the rifle that he kept many years before offering it to a roofer to pay some works done on the roof. In 1998, the retired roofer gave the rifle to a collector and narrows the story of the discovery of the rifle.
He goes with the collector to the place where the gun had been found and show him the "ditch of the gun". Half-hearted, the collector screened the ditch with a detector. The device rings, revealing a funny small metal tool staying in the grass since the war.
This is the rare device used for the setting of the scope of the rifle that retrieves its gun, 54 years later.

So looking at this picture, I wonder if any of you knew that the rifle could be equipped with a bi pod, if yes what kind of bi pod was it. And there is no swivel in front of the magazine.
So what to think about this rifle?

Information

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[Peter Laidler]

With a bipod on the end of the barrel, it's my guess that he will have needed more than a telescope adjusting tool to hit a target.

It looks like a sleeved down Bren bipod to me

[David TS]

With a bipod on the end of the barrel, it's my guess that he will have needed more than a telescope adjusting tool to hit a target.

It looks like a sleeved down Bren bipod to me

Hubble telescope probably!

[jmoore]

I find that the adjusting tool is suspiciously weathered to a degree not unlike the rifle itself, at least in the photo above. If it remained unfound for all those many extra years, it ought to be in much worse shape, no?

[Beerhunter]

It looks like a sleeved down Bren bipod to me

It sure does and its new one on me.

[Thunderbox]

Bipod and rifle might be two separate relics found in the same ditch, and assumed to be together? An uniformed person might assume that the bayonet lugs on the rifle muzzle are somehow linked with the very similar cut-outs on the inside of the bipod ring - especially if both are oversize with corrosion.

[RJW NZ]

Good story, thanks for posting

[Norton1]

Would there have been a bipod made for the sniper rifle?

[Thunderbox]

Would there have been a bipod made for the sniper rifle?

No. Bipods weren't really conceived of as a rifle accessory in those days. The whole tradition and training regime of British Army marksmanship centred around a proper manual hold of the rifle - the left hand supported by cover if available. Target slings were the limit of support aids, and British sniper rifles had only just been equipped with a multi-purpose sling.

[gsimmons]

Didn't some of the snipers prefer the longer Bren sling? Without the snaps of course.