No 4 rear sight with aperture milled off.

[browningautorifle]

Should I pass it on to someone

You can put it up for sale at auction and state as is. They can decide what it is, and if they want to pay big bucks or not.

[Roger Payne]

Agreed. It could be a replacement sight from a real 4T or it could be one that Parker's modified themselves specifically to use on your rifle. It's impossible to say for sure after all this time....

Curious. Is there some provenance on your sight Jim? I also forgot to mention that a quantity of Savage made Mk1 rear sights were shipped to H&H for fitting to converted rifles that had arrived there with the wrong spec rear sight. I have owned two or three '43 BSA's with such Savage rear sights - they are 'original' to the rifle, or at least from the time of its conversion at Hollands.I think MkVII drew our attention to this a year or two back.

ATB

[Enfieldlock]

Agreed. It could be a replacement sight from a real 4T or it could be one that Parker's modified themselves specifically to use on your rifle. It's impossible to say for sure after all this time....

Curious. Is there some provenance on your sight Jim? I also forgot to mention that a quantity of Savage made Mk1 rear sights were shipped to H&H for fitting to converted rifles that had arrived there with the wrong spec rear sight. I have owned two or three '43 BSA's with such Savage rear sights - they are 'original' to the rifle, or at least from the time of its conversion at Hollands.I think MkVII drew our attention to this a year or two back.

ATB

The provenance comes from finding it amongst the junk I inherited when I took over a job in Enfield.

[Roger Payne]

Sorry, do you mean it's off a Trials rifle? That's what I was trying to clarify.

[Enfieldlock]

Roger,

One scenario is that a shedload of No4 backsights were shipped to Enfiled to have the battle sight milled off for the No4T programme. Otherwise it was salvaged and kept for trials work at Enfield.

It could not have come off a proper trials rifle, those sights use a ball and spring rather than a plunger. I doubt if Savage ever made sights like that. Those sights are Enfield marked and like Hens' Teeth. I have only ever seen two.

[Peter Laidler]

Some 6 or so ex trials rifles went to Enfield in the very early 70's for possible conversion to L42 spec but were rejected due to the non interchangeability of the trials backsights with the full interchangeability that the L42 spec required. So the rifles were stripped along with hundreds of others deemed to be unsuitable. I got a 4x click one from that source for mine

No4 production sights came with either a ball or a plunger

The spares stocks for L42 rifle backsights were converted at Enfield at the same time but it was only the cursor slide that had to be re-worked/marked although you'll occasionally find an L42 sight leaf marked with a letter 'M' on the top left front too.

But look chaps..........., No4T (and L42?) backsights are as common as muck. If you've got a thousand bog standard No4 sights then you effectively have a thousand T backsights,

[Roger Payne]

Thanks Jim. That's what I was working round to - I wasn't sure in your original post if you meant the sights were off Trials rifles or used in Trials. The former would have surprised me, the latter not so!

IIRC the fifty-odd C pattern Trials rifles had the 'run of production rear sight', but AFAIK none were converted to T's, only B patterns.

ATB.

[Thunderbox]

There is a more prosaic reason for a battle sight being milled off on Parker's rifle (if the sight is original and not just someone's recent addition): it is perfectly possible to fit a target sight such as a PH5C and a standard Singer sight together on the same rifle.

Some people still do this so that you can easily switch from one to the other - i.e. you just remove the arm from the PH sight, and you can use the Singer sight. To do this, you do have to remove the battle sight, as it obstructs the eye piece mounting for the PH sight....

[Peter Laidler]

That's a well thought out idea TBox. My sons old school CCF had some ex No4T's bought cheap in the 50's and without telescopes (or at least, I couldn't find any.....) used by their shooting team. As I remember, they had their Mk1 T backsights together with spaced PH5C sights that sat astride the rear pad. They could easily and quickly change sights to suit whatever comp regulations they were shooting. They all went into a little specially made wooden box, each numbered on the rear to the rifle. Even the little compartmented wooden box was a work of art

[Roger Payne]

Peter, did they mill out a little meat from the target sight to clear the rear body pad, or remove the pad? I once bought a nice 45 BSA T from a 'ye olde village gunsmythe' type shop for a pittance - it had had a target sight fitted, & the rear pad removed. (It had also been rebarrelled to 7.62mm).