Hal and others. No4T info

[Peter Laidler]

Hal, maybe I can save you a bit of time and money. There's every chance that being an ex trials No4T, yours might not have even had a cheek rest fitted. The cheek rests were originally designed and manufactured for the P14 T's with their higher telescopes and NOT for the No4T's. At Warminster, we have the original P'14 sniper on which the tests were carried out (don't have number/scope on hand.....). It was after these trials that someone suggested that the cheek rest would fit the No4 as well..... The rest, as they say, is history.

That's why the approval date for the cheek rest is way ahead of the adoption date and SAI's (Small Arms Information - sheets of information for Armourers, issued AFTER the Instructions for Armourers but before EMER's) were issued that the cheek rest could be fitted to No4T rifles. So if your butt is original and without screw holes, then leave it!

I have not ever seen the SAI's that relate to this because they were flimsy pieces of paper but Arthur Maddock, a very old Armourer of the era told me that the cheek rests originally came out with a P-14 (British)Ordnance part number as opposed to a No4 Ordnance part number of the BA xxxx type (or P-14 US type part number). Later they got a Ministry of Supply part number of the B1/CR xxxx type. And because they were MADE to configure and fit to a P'14 butt, they never fit a No4 butt properly.

Just another bit of useless info but not a lot of the No4T experts know/knew that. And that leads me to another thing. You can always tell a modern repro cheek rest because they fit TOO good! That's unless the Armourer has taken a bit of time to fit one exactly to the No4T butt

Information

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[Hal O'Peridol]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the post, however I already knew about the early No4T rifles not having a cheekpiece. I have an excellent article written by Dr. Payne about markings and appearance of the early T rifles.

Pretty much I wish to put one on since it helps me acquire a better cheek weld using the scope mounted. The Trials T I have was pretty much restored from a barreled action, but fortunately many of the hard to find bits still present.

Here is a pic of what I got (paid equivilent of 80 bucks for it)




Here is what I had about two hours after raiding the spares bin and modifying the foreend for the cutoff:




I really MUST take some better photos of some of my stuff.

[rayg]

Nice restoration and with all the early parts.
Do you have a link to the article by Dr. Payne about markings and appearance of the early T rifles. Or could you post it? I have a Trials "T" so I would be interested in what he says. Ray

[Roger Payne]

Hi Hal & Ray. Thx for the comments. My article was in Ian Skennerton's International Collector magazine a few years ago -- & has since also been printed in slightly revamped format in the UK's 'Armourer' magazine. However, Nigel Greenaway's article which is available in the on line knowledge section of this site is very similar. In fact Nigel has extended the remit somewhat by including information on sniping related publications & also reloading for the No4 T.
Incidentally, tonight I picked up the first 8 of the new batch of No32 brackets from my sandblaster's. They will be available in about a week's time!

ATB to all.