Milsurp After Hours

On Sunday I encountered a 1943 No.4 Mk1 that was in such fine condition I couldn't pass it up. Never FTR'ed, it is so crisp that it's odd. The screws all appear to have never been turned, and the blue is nearly pristine. The wood had not been off in a long, long time. Althought the wood has been beaten up and gouged through rough handling and storage, the rifle does not have the appearance of having been issued. The bolt and bolt way show almost no wear from repeated cycling. Strange for a mid-war rifle. All of the wood is closely matched in appearance, finish, wear and abuse, and there is very little oil and grease soaked in. The metal all has the appearance of a wartime built rifle, well made, but no time wasted on cleaning up edges and fine finish where unnecessary. There seem to be uncommonly few proofs and inspection marks. The barrel has a few crowns, broad arrows and inspectors marks, and the action one or two broad arrows and one crown. Not a crossed flag proof anywhere, that I can find. I'll take photos of what proofs I can find later.

Certainly an interesting rifle. Is this a strange find? A strange serial number, EA28861A?

MM

very nice find and I would have thought that it would have seen more use as it's dated 43 maybe it was issued to a cook

From what I can see in the pictures that is indeed very nice looking.

Stan

MM, Is this one of the recent Turkish rifles? Pound for pound these have been some of the nicest batch of little used, non FTR'd rifles to hit the market. (Most, if not all are '43s.)

It seems some time in '43 the Fazakerley method of stamping it's ID and year changed.

Regards, Brad

Yes, Brad, this is one of Century's recent batch. I'd heard somewhere they were out of Turkey. The storage and handling damage resembles some Turk mausers I've seen. Looks like SOP was to pile hundreds of rifles willy-nilly in the back of pick-up trucks for transport.

On the other hand this rifle is extraordinary, as far as what's been available here. The metal is truely pristine, all the screws are un-buggered, and even the felt washer was present. Disassembly was like opening a time capsule. Dessicated grease and oil. That's interesting about when Fazakerly changed to "electro-pencil." I'd been under the impression that change had been in '44 or '45. This rifle bears out a transition in '43.

Michael

MM, I agree about the "time-capsule". My Savage gave much of the same feeling to me. The metal finish on mine is good, but the furniture is roughly G+ and the bore VG.

I hope the best wasn't saved for last!

Regards, Brad

certainly is puzzling. I just picked up Stratton's book on the No.4 and 5 rifles. In it he says that it wasn't until 1945 that the full year of manufacture was replaced by mm/yy. This one seems to break that rule with 5/43.

The serial number, EA28861A seems strange, as well. The 28861 fits within the Fazackerly serial list, and the A suffix easily explained as "non-standard parts." The EA prefix, however doesn't seem to be Fazackerly, or any other manufacturer, that I can determine.

Any thoughts?

MM

MM, I don't know why, or what it represents, but Faz. changed the s/n prefixs to a letter followed by either an A, a B or a C. (At this time no second letter beyond C has been found, AFIK.)

Regards, Brad