I am completely new to vintage /surplus rifles. I have a very nice Enfield No 4 Mk 1 * that is marked Long Branch 1942. Over the chamber area is a crown with BNP (British Nitro Proof ???) and on the stock socket, over the serial number is
ENGLAND '46 Which I imagine is a refurbishing date but I'm guessing.

I know the No 4 Mk 1* was one of the last revisions of this venerable rifle. This one obviously served in WWII. I wish it could talk. Did it go to North Africa to fight the Afrika Corps, Did it fight in Italy or did it go onto the beaches a D-Day, march through France to Germany. Who owned the young hands that took good care of it did it save his life? Did in end the life a German recruit that perhaps was not any happier to be there than the English lad that shot him? I wish rifle like this could tell me it's story. Because of it's lack of additional marking I doubt it was one of the many thousands that were shipped to Israel

I have only shot a few rounds of surplus stuff through it (some of which is dated 1907 :eek: :D ).

I bought 30 round pack of surplus that is from 1947 with black tips on the bullets and the rims are marked MF 1941 VII.

Questions:

1. ANYTHING about the rifle that you can tell me?

2. Can you tell me the signifigance of the black tip on the ammo?

All my life I have thought of the Enfield as a homely piece (other than the No 5 Jungle Carbine) but more and mor I see it's value. It was a true fighting rifle. It reminds me of the old soldiers saying about WW1 rifles:
The Sprinfield is the best target rifle.
The Mauser is the best hunting rifle.
The Enfield was the best BATTLE rifle.

With it's 10 rounds, stripper or detachable mag. Bolt to trigger distance. It's great sights. It may very well be the very best bolt action battle rifle in history.


In the next few weeks I have a M38 or M44 Moisin and a K31 Swiss coming. I will be handloading all 3 and may start bullet casting for them. I think it will be fun to work up some near full power loads, some mid range (and probably most used) as well as very light plinking load. For instance the M44 and the Enfield will both be more like bolt action 30-30s most of the time. Great to plink with. They are also doing to get 125 grain 2000 fps plinking loads.

I would like to turn the K31 in my lead bullet launcher. The rifle I have coming has a great bore and most K31's are very accurate. Should be fun.

Sounds like you did just fine with your rifle. The black tips may mean a number of things depending on who made it. It could be armor piercing, tracer or who knows what.

Just a comment. the ammo that you shot from 1907 is almost certainly corrosive. That requires special cleaning procedures to prevent ruining the bore. If you cleaned the bore properly, things should be OK. Otherwise, the bore should be cleaned with G.I. bore cleaner or hot soapy water patches, wet patches, dry patches and oiled patches. Hope this help. All the best...
Gil

You are opening a can of worms! The 1903 is a modified Mauser, The Mauser 98 action is the strongest, the Enfield is the smoothest. Does your No.4 have an FTF or FTR on the receiver? Mine is a 1942 Longbrach also. England '46 is not a refurb date. FTF or FTR would be. Mine is a No4MK1/3. 1952 Trigger rebuild. I shoot WW2 era Enfields, Mausers, and 91/30's. I have not found an "03 that will compare. That is only my opinion. Jim

You are opening a can of worms! The 1903 is a modified Mauser, The Mauser 98 action is the strongest, the Enfield is the smoothest. Does your No.4 have an FTF or FTR on the receiver? Mine is a 1942 Longbrach also. England '46 is not a refurb date. FTF or FTR would be. Mine is a No4MK1/3. 1952 Trigger rebuild. I shoot WW2 era Enfields, Mausers, and 91/30's. I have not found an "03 that will compare. That is only my opinion. Jim

I am very familiar with the needs of the corrosive primer. I'm sure all of the ammo I have from 1907 to 1947 is corrosive.

I have learned a bit more since yesterday after about 8 hours online. The Long Branch was built in a little village outside of Toronto that in the mean time have been swallowed up as Toronto expands.

Did it make the trip to Europe to fight against Hitler and just stayed in England at the end of the war to be reproofed in '46. As most of you probably know when any rifle is imported into England it must be reproofed.

The "England '46" was an import proof mark. So built in 1942 Canada it was imported into England. Why? I wonder if it was not to replace beat up WWII rifles. This rifle MAY have done to Korea as part of the U.N. "Police Action".

Finally my rifle must have been imported in the U.S. before 1968. I say this because there is no importer's stamp on this rifle that the law requires after the Gun Control Act 1968.

It is also interesting that this rifle is still in service to this day right here in North America. The Canadian Rangers still use this rifle in the far north of Canada. They prefer it's simple strength, decent accuracy and simplicity which is important when you are all alone in the frozen north.

Vincent, British import proofs are a sqaure box with 3 to 4 letters on top and 3 to 4 on the bottom all inside the box. Many longbranch rifles here in the U.S. have no U.S. import stamps. If the rifle was brought in to Britian by a Canadian soldier it would not have been British proofed. It also would not have been proofed leaving Britian as it is not a commercial arm. Jim

Only firearms for commercial sale were required to undergo proofing on import. Military rifles didn't.

Most Long Branches I've seen are better finished, and have more uniform barrel/chamber dimensions than their English made cousins. You should enjoy that rifle.

Somehow the rifle DID make to England as the stock socket says "ENGLAND" on it. This may be because the U.S. required the country the rifle was being imported from to be stamped according to some of my research.

So it appears it went to England as a military rifle and then was surplused from there to the US.

This was part of a number, a large number, of surplus rifles that were stored in a barn in TN for a number of years. Some of these rifles were just a bit rough with rust and bird poop on them. A close friend that is a gunsmith here in Middle TN bought a number of them and once a week, under his direction, a two of my friends get together with him to clean them up and restore as needed. This one is very nice looking as it was the first one done by Mike my gunsmith friend.

Even though we are refinishing the rifles we try to get them to as close to original as possible. Some are just cleaned up. Some, like mine are stripped down, repainted, stocks refinished with boiled linseed oil and come out of the process looking almost as good as the day they left the factory other than stock dents that are too large to steam out completely.

We realized this would drive purist collectors up a wall but the rifles that are completely refinshed would not be of much collector value anyway. Refinshed it is quite a handsome rifle intended to make it's owner happy as a shooter.

Concerning the black tipped 1947 ammo, it appears to be armor piercing. It is loaded with 37.5 grains of Cordite and a 150 grain (rather than the much more common 174 gr) boat tail bullet that is attracked to a magnet in the front half of the bullet. However it does not have the common "W" stamp on the base that many armor piercing rounds do.

This has been fun and I have only shot it a couple rounds so far! When you go out and buy a new Remchester you just have a rifle. Once you buy or in my case trade for, one of these you get a mystery, a story.....something to research and wonder about. Can't wait for my K31 Swiss and M38 or M44 to get here! :D ;)

This is my first post on this website, but you are going to love that rifle. I know I love mine(MK1 NO.4, sporter stock, bushnell scope) I recently just bought the b-square mount and a Bushnell Banner. I had some really good shots with the stock sights, its amazing to me how much better peep sights are, then regular style rifle sights. But anyway, i'm gonna' whore a pic of my .303 with its new addition. Hopefully i'll be able nail like 2" groupings at 300 yards, thats what i'm gonna be shooting for..should be able to hold it.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b112/Burntrubber87/DSC00596-1.jpg

This is my first post on this website, but you are going to love that rifle. I know I love mine(MK1 NO.4, sporter stock, bushnell scope) I recently just bought the b-square mount and a Bushnell Banner. I had some really good shots with the stock sights, its amazing to me how much better peep sights are, then regular style rifle sights. But anyway, i'm gonna' post a pic of my .303 with its new addition. Hopefully i'll be able nail like 2" groupings at 300 yards, thats what i'm gonna be shooting for..should be able to hold it.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b112/Burntrubber87/DSC00596-1.jpg

I have the same setup using the B-Square mount and Banner scope and it works well. Good luck on getting 2-inch groups at 300 yards and be sure to post pictures. Take care...
Oberndorf

I have the same setup using the B-Square mount and Banner scope and it works well. Good luck on getting 2-inch groups at 300 yards and be sure to post pictures. Take care...
OberndorfI was happy with the setup, I haven't got to shoot it yet, but today I realized that the scope, if say you were looking down on the gun, the scope looks twisted clockwise for some reason, the whole mount does, i've tried 2 different sets of rings...might have to bring it to the gunsmith and have him mod it or something..and the hardware that came with the B-square mount...complete garbage

I took the old Enfield to the Range Monday and had a good time. I had two types of ammo. The 1947 A.P stuff I discussed above and the 100 to 107 year old English stuff.

That is not a misprint. The oldest head stamp is 1897 making it 110 years old. Most of it (my friend has 2000 rds or more of it) is headstamped 1900 and 1907! I decide to put the several 1897 rounds I had aside and just shot the 1900 and 1907.

Separated by headstamp I shot several 1 to 1.2" groups at 50 yards and except for an occasional very slight hang fire it all shot very well. All together through various Enfield a Martini and a Ross Straight pull we have shot about 200 rds of this stuff. I was very happy with first time out 1" groups at 50 with ammo this old.

Now for the bad news. The 1947 stuff was horrible. I only fired 3 rds and all three were full sideways keyholes @ 50!!!

All three split the necks in at least two and three places :mad: All this at $1 per shot :mad: :mad:

I did not shoot any more of this trash and the rifle was cleaned before we even left the range and cleaned some more that evening.

Speaking of cleaning Enfields I spent a good part of yesterday cleaning all the Enfields we have rebuilt so far :D

The oldest was from 1913 and was just finished yesterday.

Bye the way, I have been using Outer's Foaming Bore Cleaner on these and it has really worked well. I could not believe how much blue/purple CRAP I got out of my barrel!! The cleaner did not take any paint of and just kept getting the bores cleaner and cleaner but to tell the truth I never got anything like white patch out of any of these rifles.

I have plans to build an electric bore cleaner and that is next!

Vincent, I can't fault you for liking the rifle, but I do beleive some of your info is wrong. These are your words! "I am completely new to vintage /surplus rifles.". So even w/ 8 hours of research, do you know for a fact that it is what it seems to be? I have been collecting for 20+ years, and always find I have been incorrect at times. The only reference to and "England" stamp on the net, came from an average guy, not a collecter. It very well may be when the soldier was stationed there. Nothing else. Jim

I'm sorry I missed this before but it is entirely possible some of my info is wrong......no deoubt about it. Can you tell what some of that might be? Any help is appreciated:)

I found where your info came from. I did a search also. "England" is a strange stamp, since that is not the Name of the country. Great Britain would make more sense. I checked on Gun Boards and there are a few others w/ this stamp. Is it odd? yes, is it wrong? No one can say. It maybe an early attempt at bumping the price, who knows. In any case, re-bluing, re-finishing decreases value. But I love to shoot, and a good classic shooter is worth $200.00. I am sorry if I came across harsh before. I have a sweet spot for No4's. Send me a PM if you want to talk further. Jim

I have several No. 4 Mk 1 Enfield rifles with "England" stamped on the receiver ring. It appears to be original. All the best...
Gil

I have several No. 4 Mk 1 Enfield rifles with "England" stamped on the receiver ring. It appears to be original. All the best...
Gil
Gil, Are they Longbranch? The ones that I have seen are on the side of the receiver. This is all new to me. Jim

Mine is stamped Long Branch on the left receiver wall

It is stamped England on the stock socket

I read somewhere that when a surplus rifle was imported into the U.S. it has to be stamped with the name of the country it was coming from.


As to England being a country it is. Great Britain is the name of the island on which 3 countries of the Unitied Kingdom. That empire consists of the countries England, Wales, Scotland and Nothern Ireland. At least that is how the American Heritage Dictionary explains it.

As stated my Long Branch No 4 have "Long Branch" on the left receiver wall and this on the socket:
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g228/vblancer/RIM00011-1.jpg
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g228/vblancer/RIM00002-1.jpg
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g228/vblancer/RIM00009-1-1.jpg

That black paint almost looks like an India rebuild. As far as the England, and '46, those appear to be different strikings. It very well may have traveled the world, or sat in an arsenal and was sold to a Country such as Canada, or India. You can speculate every senario, but it is speculation. Good luck w/ her. Jim

The black paint was our "restoration". This rifle, and a pile of others, was left neglected in a barn for years. It was covered with bird poop, dirt grime and who knows what. We actually had to pressure wash some of them (we did about 15- 20 of them from different models and makers). We read that many of them were originally painted although we had an Indian one that may have had some kind of plated finish. These rifles appeared to be painted so we stripped them, painted the metal. Repaired the stocks by raising most of the dents (this was the first rifle done, the later ones look nicer as far as the stock work).

Please note. While several of these rifles have been sold they are NOT passed off as anything but refinished shooters. So far everyone that bought one has been very happy with it.

The bores vary from almost pristine to very rough. This rifle has a decent bore.