What is the highest number No4 Mk2 "in captivity"?

[Patrick Chadwick]

By which I mean: what is the highest/latest UF number on a No 4 Mk 2 actually owned by a forum member (i.e. NOT a number you read in a book)?

This thought was prompted by the posting "Why does my gun exist? To which the obvious answer is: so that we coud have the pleasure of shooting new Enfields half a century later!

I have an UF 55A 12xxx, and I have seen a 15xxx for sale here in Germany. Who can offer more?

Patrick

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[S-A-M3]

I have a Fulton Reg. No4 Mk2 all matching A32591
Stu.

[bradtx]

Patrick, You'll need to use the date of manufacture also. Why? There are 1955 dated Irish contract rifles that retained their PF prefixed s/n range. Only those with NIW rifles will know what month their rifle was manufactured. My UF A104XX was made in May, 1955.

Brad

[Patrick Chadwick]

Thanks for that thought bradtx!

The awkward term here is "date of manufacture". If a receiver is made on Date R, then the completed rifle is test fired and approved on Date T, and the rifle is packed for dispatch on Date D - then which of these is the date of manufacture?

I do not know what the Enfield factory marking system was. There must have been something, for quality and stock control purposes. From the book on the M1917 (more popularly known as the P17) by C.S. Ferris, it is clear that any real-life factory would have a stock on hand of receivers and barrels, assembling them into complete rifles and collecting into batches as required to fulfil delivery quotas. So for M1917s the receiver numbering sequence and barrel dates do not show a perfect correlation.

From your post re: PF series rifles (I think we should avoid the "Irish contract" label as being misleading - Stratton's book shows PF numbers up into the 411xxx range) I wonder if by NIW you are referring to a date on the wrapper. I am not familiar with these wrappers, so I hope you can help me: If there is a date on the wrapper, then is it supposed to be the date of manufacture or the batch date?

Just think of automobile manufacture - the date on which your "new" car is delivered to the dealer, or the date on which is it first registered is not the date of manufacture, as a few scandals in the past have shown!

So, a date of, say, April 1955 on a wrapper containing a PF-numbered rifle does not prove that the rifle was manufactured in April 1955, but (assuming that the date is indeed the date of wrapping) that the rifle was manufactured AT THE LATEST in April 1955.

If UF55 indicates the 1955 Fazakerley production, then why would someone mark a receiver with a PF number in 1955? To confuse the inspectors or what? Sorry if that sounds a bit sarcastic, but the reality in any manufacturing process is that you do NOT hop around from one numbering series to another unless you want to totally screw up quality and stock control, batching, material ordering etc. I may well be totally wrong, but until someone produces a better answer, just think of those "new" cars that have in fact been sitting in a production park for months!

As to the numbering. I reckon the rifle from S-A-M3 must be from about the last month of production, as Stratton llist up to UF.55A34567 (and the 34567 sounds almost too neat to be true - sorry again lads, now I'm getting downright cynical).


Patrick

[bradtx]

Patrick, Being cynical is bad?

-Stratton's list had to do with observed s/ns so there can be quite a fudge factor post his survey.
-The UF/UB designation seems to only apply to MoD rifles, the PF numbering that continued on contract rifles may've been a legal matter.
-There's been some speculation that the PF4XXXX s/ns may've been used for commercial sales as some Fulton's rifles are in this range, but as yet to be shown exclusive.

There used to be a spreadsheet graciously provided by breugal (sorry if misspelled!) that was a great tool for s/n research. The No.5 section showed that for roughly a three month span s/n prefixs could be intermixed...a F prefixed rifle could be older than an E prefixed rifle, for example. Also there wasn't a direct comparison between assembly number and part number for Lithgow rifles. Date of manufacture always is what is stamped on the action body (if any). During '41 and '42 Lithgow had many rifles that included both years, one on the action body and one on the butt stock...action body trumps butt stock.

The date label on the wrapper is only indicitive of when the rifle was wrapped, but could help get a comparable timeline between the PF and UF rifles.



Unfortunately the date is in red so pretty hard to read. There was also a tag attached to the trigger guard with final inspector's signature, but I gave mine away.

Brad

[Patrick Chadwick]

There does indeed seem to be a certain fuzzy factor. I would take a dated final inspection tag or stamp as a definite date as it indicates the end of all manufacturing and production procedures, but I imagine that such tags. still attached to rifles, have a rarity that can only be measured on the hen's teeth scale.

As S-A-M3 seems to have won the "latest" poll without any competition, let's turn it round. What is the EARLIEST NO. 4 out there (NOT counting trials rifles)?

Patrick

[jimbocoop45@hotmail.com]

ive got an allnumbers matching number 4 mk 2 including matching on receiver bayonet magazine and bolt handle made jan 54 serial number pf 3165xx was actually curious as to the value of this piece

[Patrick Chadwick]

Sorry Jimbo, that's nothing special, just one of the PF series of so-called "Irish Contract" rifles. A lot of them appear to have been imported into Germany and were sold in FOOW (Fresh Out Of Wrapper) condition - they had to be taken out of the wrapper to be proofed! They used to be available for 4-500 euros, but you can now add 1 or 2 hundred on to that. So when I was offered a not-quite FOOW UF for 300 I said yes before the seller had time to draw breath.

As there were a lot of these rifles, and they have no historical context, apart from the wannabee Irishness, condition is everything. At the time of writing, a seller is hopelessly offering, for the third time, a beat-up Mk 2 with the pathetic description "barrel bad but good enough for club shooting". No offers at 200. All the shooters I know want these rifles to make a respectable show when competing with M1917s and Springfield 03s, not as cabinet filler material.

So from 150 for a beat-up to 5-600 for an FOOW is my estimate.

Patrick

[Amatikulu]

Brad,

I kept Breugels original data going and made some improvements - here it is

No.4 Fazakerley

[jmoore]

just sold a tatty UF55 A333xx
Mr. Sullivan posted pictures of it and its mate with odd receiver markings on the old Jouster forum probably a year ago or so. Mr. Laidler commented that the additional markings on the left flat were too near the hardened locking area to have been applied by the MOD.