More pictures

 

When issued to the Sniper the armourer would 'adjust it to fit', this often meant chhanging the butt to suit the Snipers LoP. Whilst the Armourer may take a 'quick look' thru the box of butts to find a colour match it was more importnt to get the rifle out and being used.

My 4T appears to have had little concern about making it match (but it is Armourer fitted - but it is an RAF issue)

 

msniper19: Is there maybe a hint of the butt having been stripped (chemically) and not re-stained to match the surprisingly new-looking forend? It's so hard to find "T"s that haven't been tinkered with these days. If it were mine I would stain the butt to match the forend- there are so many with a decent colour match that it's hard for me to believe one would leave the factory with that mismatch and I have no idea if replacements were commonly numbered to the rifle, as yours is.

Ruprecht

 

Thanks for the replies guys.

No the stock shows no signs of being stripped. If a field armourer had replaced it would they have had the same dies to stamp number match the butt stock? Would they have marked it as finished? This butt stock shows no signs of being renumbered. So would the field armourer have had plant butt stocks that had all the inspections stamps from Holland and Holland to be used? Because again, this stock has no signed of an old number being removed.

Thanks

 

So would the field armourer .......................

I very much doubt that the Snipers would receive their kit in 'theatre', they would be issued with everything at 'base' and the base wokshops / base armourers would be involved.

They would certainly have stamps to number the butt to the rifle and the scope (as it was a requirement) but certainly - it would be questionalble if they would add the S51

 

I don’t see any problems with the contrast in color. I have examples with lighter wood.

 

It looks all correct to me. The standard for woodwork was "a reasonable match in color". Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Hey Brian! I was hoping you were still around. I know you’ve seen several of these. Is it come to see them like this? Or I guess a better question is have you seen them like this before?

 

I wouldn't say common. I can honestly say that of all the ones I've examined over many years, about 50% were complete and in excellent, matching condition. I had some post war FTRs too that were gorgeous. It's unrealistic to think they haven't been worked on over the years, both during their service careers/storage/inspection and by subsequent owners, (God forbid sometimes). I kept one BSA/H&H that's "as new" and judging by the lack of fouling in the barrel, most likely only test fired at the factory. It still has grease wrapping on the barrel bands and retains its tag. The only thing that was wrong was the Mk.3 telescope was jammed solid in the drums and in bad need of service as about 98.9% are. I had to break the stakes on the bracket cradle screws to carefully remove it and send it for service. I carefully reinstalled it when it returned in truly "nos" condition and I've never fired it since. I have others that I shoot. The No.8Mk.1 telescope case is matching but the chest has no remnants of a matching tag. The newest conditon rifle I've seen other than some Canadian '45 date Long Branch No.4Mk.1*T rifles in the 80L serial number range. If your rifle was mine, I'd carefully disassemble, inspect and service it. I only use raw linseed oil on the wood. Mix a bit of alkanet root in the oil if you want but I wouldn't stain it if I were you. Mine has a horrible dark original stain job on the cheekpiece but I wouldn't touch it. If you treat as original, it'll blend nice and naturally as the RLO oxidizes with age.

 

Looks all good to me. Nice 👍