Early, early Maltby? One of the first??

[Giove]

Sorry Lance, I did'n buy the rifle. It cost a bunch.

[tonyd]

Nice early Maltby you have there Lance!
I have 3558, but no suffex after the number. I note from looking at a few earlyish Maltbys that the engraving or roll stamping position starts off quite alot further forward on the action than the later ones too! Hence why mine has had the ROF part of it machined off for the front scope pad!

[browningautorifle]

Nice piece for sure...

[breakeyp]

I did not find the one I was looking for but found two of interest before I got too tired to continue. Will continue tomorrow if things go well. No pictures yet as camera battery was drained.
I was pleased to uncover a second NO. 4 with Indonesian markings.

Found:

B code 1941 date 0917 serial no.

ROF M 1941 date A13962 serial no.

It is worth noting the 1930s serial nos. applied by Enfield were on stamp for the first two digits of the year followed by the last two hand stamped.

[Surpmil]

Can I ask what markings are on the backsight and do you have photos of it?

The very different levels of "dirt" accumulations suggest to me a foresight protector swap relatively recently. I wonder if someone removed a trials pattern protector and replaced it with this one in order to restore a trials No.4?

The most interesting part of all this IMHO is the evidence that either production of No.4 components continued at RSAF Enfield longer that suspected, or that early production bodies which perhaps were out of spec but still useable were not discarded, but put into some kind of storage and presumably sent out to Maltby for completion in 1940-41; possibly both scenarios.

The backsight relief cuts in the body would be a clue perhaps: The 1931-33 dated bodies have the earlier, smaller relief cuts for the ball detent. With the Model C trials variant in 1935, the deeper relief cuts we see on all later No4's were introduced with the plunger detent. Those cuts were left "in the white" on at least some of the Model C rifles.

We can see from the engraving that this body was blued afterwards so not likely we're going to learn anything from that here though.

The steel batch numbers should tell what bodies were produced together though, regardless of what the other markings are. Unless of course they didn't necessarily finish up one batch before starting to use another!

[Lance]

Here is the backsight area. While taking photos I noticed there appears to be a pilot hole that was filled by the bolt head release, it could be just the design of the milling bit also?

I also took a couple more pictures of the markings/blue finish as the first one was dark. It is hard to photograph as it either bleeds out the color or looks overly dark.
.

[Surpmil]

That circular cut by the bolt head catch looks like a burr or perhaps a chipped cutter edge got stuck and did a few rotations.

There are three other noticeable cosmetic flaws in the machining so could well be this was an early production body that was put aside for possible future use. From the three trials rifles I owned and examined pretty carefully, a lot of attention was given to the level of finish on those.

The linear tool marks on the left side of the area covered by the backsight when folded down are a minor mystery: planer or shaper? But looks like one pass: two opposing cutters, one cutting in each direction??

So the bolt is a mismatch? Mk.I cocking piece?

Backsight is clearly the trials pattern in most respects, pretty much identical to the Long Branch MkI sight as well.

[Lance]

Sorry for the delay, as stated earlier, bolt if force matched, Mk I cocking piece (SM), bolt Long Branch (C/|\) on handle and bolt head Fazakerley. Try not to laugh to much at the bolt s/n.

[browningautorifle]

the bolt s/n.

Looks like they scraped it out with a screwdriver...

[ColinA]

The linear tool marks on the left side of the area covered by the backsight when folded down are a minor mystery: planer or shaper? But looks like one pass: two opposing cutters, one cutting in each direction?? .

Early date, A suffix (something non standard.)
Hand work (with a draw file?)

They certainly had the skills and were not afraid of doing hand finishing.