Savage Sniper

[Roger Payne]

If one assumes the British barrels & the replacement fore ends were fitted at the time of the conversion. Not all Savage rifles were worked on by having replacement wood & barrels fitted. They exist with factory original six & two groove barrels as well. Also those rifles that were completed with scopes were fitted with early scopes, not Mk3's.

I do wonder if the (specifically) Less Telescope rifles may have been part converted early on & then set to one side, the machining of the spigot subsequently being completed towards the end of the contracts in April 1946. It would at least fit in with the 'early style' front pads seen on all Savage rifles that I've ever seen, & might also have allowed a window of opportunity for replacement barrels & such like to be fitted, as per your observations.

[Giove]

No scope S.N. on the butt, so my rifle is a "Less Telescope".

[Giove]

I controlled the front pads of my No. 4(T): 1941, 1943, 1944, 1945 and the Savage.

In my opinion the '41, '43, '45 and Savage are the same; the '44 has shoulders more square.

Obviously this has little meaning: I checked only 5 rifles!

The pics: the first 2 are of the 1941 rifle and so on to follow, 2 of the 1943 rifle, 2 of the 1944 rifle, 2 of the 1945 rifle and 2 of the Savage.

[Roger Payne]

Hi Giancarlo,
Well, maybe you blew a hole in my theory! May i ask a favour? No hurry, but could you show us some more photo's of your 1945 rifle? I am presuming it is marked in the standard way as a BSA Shirley example? Could we see the body side wall showing the pads & butt socket, if possible? It intrigues me that it has 'early' profile pads on it.

[Giove]

Of course!

As soon as I can I take the photos.

[Giove]

Pics of my 1945 No. 4(T). It's a "regular sniper".

[Roger Payne]

Thanks Giancarlo,
Most interesting. It looks sort of inbetween the two to me. It's definitely got a bit rounder shoulders than most 45's I've seen. Maybe just batch to batch variation on the front pads. I still think as a generality the shoulders become more squared off as one follows the production history. That's partly why I have doubts about the conversion, or at least the full conversion, of the Savage 'Less Telescope' rifles being done late on.

[Giove]

I will try to take a pic with two rifles next to each other (1943 and 1945).

My opinion (which is worthless) on the nSavage is that they were converted in 1942 or 1943. Why a 1945 barrel? Quien sabe.

[Roger Payne]

It makes sense. I do wonder though if the 'Less Telescope' rifles were Savage rifles in the process of being converted perhaps at the time that the 'use only BSA rifles from now on' directive came through, resulting in them being set to one side partly converted but unfinished. (Maybe it was pointed out to H&H that we didn't actually OWN them). Then, for whatever reason (perhaps pecuniary) as the end of the conversion contract was approaching they got finished off. It's all speculation I know, but it would fit in with the observation that they have earlier style pads & also lack the typical 'set' of markings that had become standard on later rifles (the S, T, D6E). If they were converted in 1945/46 why aren't those marks present? In fact the lack of markings (apart from the S51 which has been noted on the butts of pretty well all H&H conversions) is exactly consistent with other rifles generally acknowledged to have been converted by H&H early on, like the 1941 & 42 Savage rifles that got scoped up & the 1941 BSA & Maltby rifles?

And I can't prove a word of it!

[Bindi2]

Logic Roger. Now to really throw the cat amongst the pigeons. I have a L42 with the serial number of 0c0109