New to me Savage No4Mk1*

[303carbine]

The Enfields seem to be coming to me in packs these days. My most recent is a 1941 Savage No4Mk1* that went through FTR in Faz in 1942, it musta seen some hell.
They rebarrelled it with a nice 5 groove and put the nice dark Savage wood back on it and replaced the 300/600 flip sight with a micrometer sight, yay.:}
It's super tight in the headspace department, my rounds I had loaded for my No5 wont even close!!:Fire:
Anyhoo, I loaded a box of 174's to test out tomorrow before the Christmas hoards of inlaw outlaws get here for the slaughter of the turkey and the guzzling of whiskey and wine.
Being a shooter and non drinker, I will have to get my shooting done before they show up, cuz after that, I get to be designated driver and booze fetcher.
I will snap a few pics when I can, hopefully 303guy will be gracious again and post pics for me, I wish he was closer so I could buy him a couple drinks.
Merry Christmas to all, from 303 carbine and family.

[Jack Stanley]

Sounds like a nice rifle and I hope it shoots very well for you , maybe it didn't get much use after FTR ? I had two of the Savage rifles and both shot pretty well with cast , both used the two groove barrel . The first didn't like shooting jacketed bullets , the current one shoots Greek and Winchester surplus very well .

Jack

[303Guy]

:drinks: Sounds like a great find. Just get those pics to me and I'll post them.

[Multigunner]

The Enfields seem to be coming to me in packs these days. My most recent is a 1941 Savage No4Mk1* that went through FTR in Faz in 1942, it musta seen some hell.
They rebarrelled it with a nice 5 groove and put the nice dark Savage wood back on it and replaced the 300/600 flip sight with a micrometer sight, yay.:}
It's super tight in the headspace department, my rounds I had loaded for my No5 wont even close!!:Fire:
Anyhoo, I loaded a box of 174's to test out tomorrow before the Christmas hoards of inlaw outlaws get here for the slaughter of the turkey and the guzzling of whiskey and wine.
Being a shooter and non drinker, I will have to get my shooting done before they show up, cuz after that, I get to be designated driver and booze fetcher.
I will snap a few pics when I can, hopefully 303guy will be gracious again and post pics for me, I wish he was closer so I could buy him a couple drinks.
Merry Christmas to all, from 303 carbine and family.

If it were a Savage made barrel I'd expect the chamber to be tighter in the shoulder area.
My fired cases look indistinguishable from unfired cases, so far as the shoulder goes at least.

Sounds like you are well ahead of the game with this rifle.

Two Groove Savage barrels, due to the narrow grooves and broad lands, are more picky about what bullets they will shoot well. The five and six groove bores handle pretty much anything very well.

[John Allen]

The enfields are great guns. I can not help buying them one I see them for a reasonable price.

[303carbine]

:drinks: Sounds like a great find. Just get those pics to me and I'll post them.


Pics away to your email Peter, thanks in advance, John
Merry Christmas

[303carbine]

I just got back from a quick range trip with the Savage, I loaded some 174 RN Hornady's over 40.5 grains of H380, I got a 3/4 inch group at 55 yards.
I am going to load some more ammo and try a 10 shot group to see how it stays in a reasonable pattern after heating up.
While all the drunken sods are nursing a hangover, I will be out burning gunpowder.:Fire:
Merry Christmas to all.8-)[smilie=p:

[303Guy]

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/SavageNo4MkIpic5_zps0c020964.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/SavageNo4MkIpic5_zps0c020964.jpg.html)
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/SavageNo4MkIpic6_zps90cef5dd.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/SavageNo4MkIpic6_zps90cef5dd.jpg.html)
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/SavageNo4MkIpic4_zpseb31545b.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/SavageNo4MkIpic4_zpseb31545b.jpg.html)

[Nickle]

Nice!

[303carbine]

Thank you very much Peter, I really appreciate your time and effort. You definitely are one of the good guys, John:2_high5:

[303carbine]

I just got back from a trip to the range with the Savage, two hundred yard targets (rocks) were easy to hit. I heated up the 303 pretty good, it didn't take me very long to shoot 33 rounds, the rifle was still warm when I rolled into the driveway at home.
The accuracy was superb for a 71 year old rifle, there was no wandering of rounds, so the bedding didn't need messing with.
The Savage was FTR'd in 1942, they really did a good job, it has maintained its accuracy and headspace all this time.
I didn't have to do anything but give it a good cleaning, no bedding fixes, no sight adjustments, no mag tweaking, just a gentle stock cleaning with Linseed Oil.
Thanks again to 303guy for the excellent pictures.

[curator]

Beautiful rifle! I have 2 Savage No4Mk1*s that were FTR'd during the Big War, both with 5-groove barrels. Good shooters all. Kinda makes me wonder what happened to the original barrels. Maybe shot with corrosive ammo and not cleaned properly. Too bad we can't trace the rifle to the unit to which it was issued. Might have some interesting history. My best loads also use the Hornady .312/174RNFB bullets at 2440fps. H380, and Rx15 both seem almost magic. Great bullet for punching paper or big furry critters. I took my first (and only) Moose with this bullet. One shot, one kill. I have a Parker Hale 5C rear sight so 1.5" five shot groups at 100 yards are possible. (but not easy for old eyes) It is good that most Yanks look down their noses at Lee Enfields. That leaves more for us!

[303carbine]

Beautiful rifle! I have 2 Savage No4Mk1*s that were FTR'd during the Big War, both with 5-groove barrels. Good shooters all. Kinda makes me wonder what happened to the original barrels. Maybe shot with corrosive ammo and not cleaned properly. Too bad we can't trace the rifle to the unit to which it was issued. Might have some interesting history. My best loads also use the Hornady .312/174RNFB bullets at 2440fps. H380, and Rx15 both seem almost magic. Great bullet for punching paper or big furry critters. I took my first (and only) Moose with this bullet. One shot, one kill. I have a Parker Hale 5C rear sight so 1.5" five shot groups at 100 yards are possible. (but not easy for old eyes) It is good that most Yanks look down their noses at Lee Enfields. That leaves more for us!

I received an email from Ian Skennerton, according to him the early Savage rifles had factory five groove barrels, it was only later in the war when two groove barrels were used. Often some these later rifles were even void of serial numbers due to them being quickly produced and sent overseas.
My rifle has two Maltese Crosses on the receiver round, this indicates that the rifle received what Skennerton calls, non interchangeable parts.
This simply means that during the FTR the rifle had a micrometer sight, a magazine and a Longbranch safety added. Other rifles could get different updates done depending on the rifle and if there was any other field repairs etc.
There was likely nothing wrong with the rifle, just parts were updated with better parts before being proofed and sold to civilian markets.

[Multigunner]

Don't know much about the Savage production but many No.4 rifles came from the factory with war time expedient parts that were replaced by the standard parts when time and resources permitted. An example would be cocking pieces with no half bent notch.
A lot of these rifles were finished up in a hurry using these non standard parts to avoid production bottle necks but were brought up to standards before being issued. Occasionally a No. 4 will be found with the expedient parts still in place.

The early Savage rifles had five groove or six groove bores. The six groove bore rifles are sought after, and have a reputation for superior accuracy.
Savage also supplied six groove barrel blanks to Harrington Richardson to manufacture 1903 barrels from Smith Corona.
Sometimes its hard to count the number of grooves by eyeball inspection, a few have reported only realizing they had a six groove bore after slugging the bore.

Apparently some six groove No. 4 barrels were also manufactured for post war rebuilds but these were not made by Savage. Some Greek returned rifles were found to have the later version six groove barrel.

[303carbine]

Don't know much about the Savage production but many No.4 rifles came from the factory with war time expedient parts that were replaced by the standard parts when time and resources permitted. An example would be cocking pieces with no half bent notch.
A lot of these rifles were finished up in a hurry using these non standard parts to avoid production bottle necks but were brought up to standards before being issued. Occasionally a No. 4 will be found with the expedient parts still in place.

The early Savage rifles had five groove or six groove bores. The six groove bore rifles are sought after, and have a reputation for superior accuracy.
Savage also supplied six groove barrel blanks to Harrington Richardson to manufacture 1903 barrels from Smith Corona.
Sometimes its hard to count the number of grooves by eyeball inspection, a few have reported only realizing they had a six groove bore after slugging the bore.

Apparently some six groove No. 4 barrels were also manufactured for post war rebuilds but these were not made by Savage. Some Greek returned rifles were found to have the later version six groove barrel.

Thanks Multigunner for the additional info, I never knew some Enfields had six groove rifling. The more I find out about Enfields, the more there is to know. I checked my Savage for a six groove barrel, mine has five for sure.
I pushed a long .308 diameter cast bullet partly down the bore and marked then counted the grooves.

[curator]

Apparently some six groove No. 4 barrels were also manufactured for post war rebuilds but these were not made by Savage. Some Greek returned rifles were found to have the later version six groove barrel.

LongBranch in Canada used some 6-groove Bren-rifled barrels on CNo.4 Mk1* rifles in the late 40s and early 50s. Much of the "Greek issue" were these rifles supplied by the UK to support the Greek Government during their Civil war 1946-49, and after. The Early Savage No.4Mk1 (no*) were rifled on their "civilian" rifling machines, 6 grooves,1 turn in 10" right-hand twist. This stopped about half-way through the 5C serial number range where 2-groove left-hand twist barrels were installed for the remainder of the production. Early Savage No.4Mk1 rifles with 5-groove barrels were probably (who would know for certain?) rebarreled without being marked.