No4 sight question - from Peter Laidler's article

[Gaijin]

Good morning,
I have been trying to do as much research and reading as I can regarding this Long Branch Lee-Enfield in my care at the moment.

After reading Mr. Laidler's article "FORESIGHTS and the No4 rifle", I of course went to carefully inspecting the sight on this rifle.

From the last paragraph of the article:

But there’s a little more……………. Our acceptable zeroing standards state after
zeroing, the blade of the foresight will overhang or be level with the edge of the
foresight block. If the edge is inboard of the edge of the block, then it indicates that
something is wrong with the rifle. BUT, it was discovered that while the UK made
foresight blade bases were .38” wide, due to a tolerance error, the Canadian bases
were .43” wide. Without going into the technicalities, a rifle fitted with a Canadian .
43” wide base could fail the zeroing criteria unnecessarily. So these Canadian .43”
wide blades were all declared obsolete and withdrawn.

The blade base width (stamped LB) on this rifle measures .429/.428". I would say that it is certainly within the tolerance of the .43" dimension mentioned in the article.

What I found is probably expected given the location of manufacture, but I remain unsure of how this affects anything.

My question is...
If I have a wider sight base that was declared obsolete, does this make this rifle just a touch more desirable (rare)? Is there anything else that this may impact?

Will the front sight protector still fit properly? I just found one that I liked and ordered it yesterday - not knowing anything about this sight blade base 'deviation' at the time. The front sight protector is completely missing, so I have nothing to compare it to.

Thank you in advance for any and all feedback!

Information

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[Gaijin]

Who does not like pictures, right?
It took me a little bit, but I got one that shows the extent that the sight base protrudes past the sight block.
For whatever it is worth, the block width that the base slides into, is .282" thick.

Based on what I am seeing, and my understanding of Laidler's article; it would seem as though the wider base would have even more latitude for zeroing (perhaps more than was intended though) than the .38" wide base.

Attachment 116066

[Surpmil]

Curious, I just measured a few off the bench:

Faz, split: .298
LB, split: .293
Faz, solid: .300
Faz, solid: .297
DOW, solid: .301
SM42, solid: .296
Faz, solid: .297
Unknown, split: .295
N67, solid: .295
LB, split: .295

Measured with a micrometer away from any burrs, dents etc.

The other factor in this is the width between the inside "shoulders" on the sight protectors.
If the foresight block is too thick or thin, we can I'm sure all imagine how that would cause problems if beyond a certain point.

I doubt that anyone will have any interest in a rifle because it might have an obsolete pattern foresight protector. What does have value is MkI or No.4 trials rifle type foresight protectors, cocking pieces etc.

[Gaijin]

Thanks for your response Surpmil.
I should be able to see what the distance between the shoulders on the sight protector is Monday. But I am not anticipating any problems with the fit over the wider blade base, since I would think that if there were issues, they would have shown up long before the zeroing process.

As it sits now, I think that this is simply a neat quirk or oddity of the rifle. Being as I have no plans to sell or trade it any time soon, it shall remain a little secret (so-to-speak) between myself and the rifle.

One thing I was a little surprised to see was that all of your sight blocks are all a little bit wider than mine. I measured .282" at the front corner of the dovetail housing.
The widest I could find anywhere on the front sight block was .288" (the larger area in front of the sight blade). I even went back and re-verified my measurements... and my 'zero'.
I see no signs at all of anyone messing around with this piece.