At the same auction that Mawkie picked up his Gendarme marked Dreyse, I snagged a sporterized Lee Enfield No4 Mk1* that hammered at a pretty fair price despite the missing magazine.
Here are the before pictures:
Closeup of the poor finish:
US Property Lend-Lease Marking:
Savage "Square S" mark, serial with the "c" for the Stevens factory in Chicopee Falls, date stamp, and Ordnance Corps "flaming bomb."
Pressure testing proof marks:
Finished product:
- Tuns out that the listing info and pictured didn't really give much detail. It turned out to be a 1942 Savage-made Lee Enfield No.4 Mk.1* Lend-Lease rifle that is NOT import marked. In fact, the pressure proof marks are at the tip of the barrel and intact which is great since importers usually cover them up with importation marks.
- The forearm was chopped with all the stock hardware missing, and to make matters worse, it was coated with varnish over shellac.
- Luckily, the butt wasn't messed with outside of being covered over, and once I dissolved the varnish and shellac, all the stamps showed up in very good detail.
- I was able to find ALL of the missing parts with the correct Savage markings to bring it back to life. NOS forearm, NOS rear hand guard (which is darker than I'd like, so I'm going to go for a used Savage marked one to see if it gets any better) used front guard, sling swivels, etc. all properly marked.
- Waiting on the correct magazine which is on order. I have a pro-mag in there for a placeholder at the moment.
- This rifle is just after the switch from the 300-600 flip sight to the micro-adjustible sight that the British preferred. It's also right around the point where Savage stopped serializing the bolts to individual rifles to save time.
- Overall I'm happy with how everything has turned out. The bore is minty and I can't wait to get out and see how it does. Only other thing missing is the front swivel which I had to get re-shipped as they sent the wrong one.
Here are the before pictures:
Closeup of the poor finish:
US Property Lend-Lease Marking:
Savage "Square S" mark, serial with the "c" for the Stevens factory in Chicopee Falls, date stamp, and Ordnance Corps "flaming bomb."
Pressure testing proof marks:
Finished product: