LongBranch laminated no4mk1 stocks

stencollector

stencollector

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
229   0   0
Location
shilo MB, the armpit of Canada
I just got my first set ever of the horizontal LongBranch laminated wood set today. I have read about these before, but never seen them in person. How rare were these?

It was a pleasant surprise in a batch of military stuff I got off ebay. It was a batch of effects from a deceased Cdn shooter who, judging from sone of the badges he had, made it to Bisley a time or two.

Pics to follow later; I have 7 yards of concrete coming in about a half hour.
 
building the bunker ??

I've seen pictures of the laminated stocks but I've never seen one. If I recall they were only produced as a trial batch, so I suspect that there are not a lot out there.

Pictures of the bunker would be nice too :D
 
stencollector said:
I just got my first set ever of the horizontal LongBranch laminated wood set today. I have read about these before, but never seen them in person. How rare were these?

It was a pleasant surprise in a batch of military stuff I got off ebay. It was a batch of effects from a deceased Cdn shooter who, judging from sone of the badges he had, made it to Bisley a time or two.

Pics to follow later; I have 7 yards of concrete coming in about a half hour.
Click to expand...

That'd look nice on a 41...although does it have the low cut forend??
 
stencollector said:
I just got my first set ever of the horizontal LongBranch laminated wood set today. I have read about these before, but never seen them in person. How rare were these?

It was a pleasant surprise in a batch of military stuff I got off ebay. It was a batch of effects from a deceased Cdn shooter who, judging from sone of the badges he had, made it to Bisley a time or two.

Pics to follow later; I have 7 yards of concrete coming in about a half hour.
Click to expand...

I understand that the horizontal laminate were done for target shooters either in the '50s or '60s.

The vertical "mauser" style lamimate was apparently WWII Canadian trials, and much rarer.

Having said all that I have samples of neither, partially because I recognized a fellow bidder's "handle" and called him to tell him I was dropping out.

He ended up with the complete set, and IIRC currently has a laminated No4 waiting for import in Montana as well.

Guess I might end up with the stock set after all ;-)
 
Cement is just bleeding off it's excess water so I can come here for a few moments. Here are a couple of preliminary photos of the stock set:
DSCF0080.jpg

DSCF0083-1.jpg


CAUTION: THE NEXT PHOTO IS GOING TO PISS ENFIELD COLLECTORS OFF. DO NOT LOOK....AVERT YOUR EYES
DSCF0085-1.jpg

To fit into the barrack box, someone cut this (and 5 other) forestock in half. Un-friggen-believeable.
DSCF0088-1.jpg

DSCF0089.jpg

DSCF0090-1.jpg

This set has a number 25 painted on the butt, and a 25 stamped in each piece of the wood. Could be a rack number or some form of serial number for the wood. If they were under trials, then possibly they wanted to track the performance of each set. It also could be the last two of the rifle's serial number

Anyway, I'll clean up this set another day (it's got a bit of mud and storage dust on it) and I guess it will end up as a display rifle. The set of stuff I bought included 4 sets of lumber, bands, rings, front sight guards and 4 PH5C rear sights. The guy I bought it all from thinks the rifles themselves were turned in to the OPP for destruction, so at least the laminated wood is somewhat saved. I can only imagine that other historically important rifles do not get saved once turned in to the Police Departments.
 
Last edited:
they get saved only by luck and some public outcry but this is very rare

very nice set BTW very rare indeed even with the cut forestock at least it's all there and can be glued
 
I have seen one LB dated 1950 with the full laminated stock. It came from a collection of target rifles that a target shooter in the NSRA and DCRA had here in Nova Scotia. It was a very nice looking rifle with that stock.From what I was told, it is a rare stock and there aren't too many of them around.
 
Laminated No 4 Wood

I have several rifles with laminated wood. Also a complete set with very fine vertical laminations. The latter has never been fitted to a rifle.

While I'm not sure of the origin of the 3/8" horizontal laminated wood, most of the wood that I have varies in lamination width and direction. All parts and pieces are very nicely done, and numbered. All the latter were used on target rifles and my source of information indicated that about 55 sets were made.

Unfortunately, most all involved are no longer with us.
 
Interesting info, thanks. One other forum member had PM'd me and he though that there were no more than 200 sets made.

So was this stuff available to the DCRA shooters on a commercial basis? Wouls they have just bought the wood, or would it have been installed on a 50s rifle when sold/issued?

I am going to find a 50 dated receiver to make up a dummy gun to install this set on for display. I sould be able to get the wood back together good enough for a display, but my wood working skills are not enough to re-attach the two halves and have it act as a bearing bearing for a .303.
 
stencollector said:
Interesting info, thanks. One other forum member had PM'd me and he though that there were no more than 200 sets made.

So was this stuff available to the DCRA shooters on a commercial basis? Wouls they have just bought the wood, or would it have been installed on a 50s rifle when sold/issued?

I am going to find a 50 dated receiver to make up a dummy gun to install this set on for display. I sould be able to get the wood back together good enough for a display, but my wood working skills are not enough to re-attach the two halves and have it act as a bearing bearing for a .303.
Click to expand...

I'm no expert, but a carpenters glue joint properly clamped is supposed to be stronger than the wood.
How about glue and clamp it, let it set, install it on a functional rifle and see how the bedding/downwards pressure is? It might be fine.

Great that that set survived and found it's way to you.
 
I suggest drilling holes for longitudial dowels, going ot take a bit of work to line them up and get the holes right bt with some PL wood glue and some short dowels you should be able to make a strong enough repair.
 
It was my intention to try the dowel thing. I'll attempt to get the holes aligned as best I can, but it seems to me that slightly overize holes will allow proper alignment. The holes would have sufficient glue or epoxy to take up the difference.
Again, woodworking is not my strongpoint, but I have read that this is the recommended method for placing rebar into existing cement. A piece of rebar epoxied into an existing foundation is more secure than one which is merely drilled than hammered in.
 
stencollector said:
It was my intention to try the dowel thing. I'll attempt to get the holes aligned as best I can, but it seems to me that slightly overize holes will allow proper alignment. The holes would have sufficient glue or epoxy to take up the difference.
Again, woodworking is not my strongpoint, but I have read that this is the recommended method for placing rebar into existing cement. A piece of rebar epoxied into an existing foundation is more secure than one which is merely drilled than hammered in.
Click to expand...


and with some of the glues they have now, the glue is stronger then the wood. I was taking apart a shed that had been glued with PL800 or someting like that. The studs were tearing apart and the glue was holding. :eek: no salvageable 2x4 were left after that.
 
If I recall, the K98k looking laminate stocks were Longbranch produced trials stocks. The thicker horizontal laminate stocks, on the other hand, were done for DCRA contracts for target shooters, supposedly offering greater wood stability.
 
They were also used experimentally in rifle trials and then the stocks were just given to DCRA shooters. They are all numbered and I'll post photo's of a few different types later.
 
Another board member sent me a photo of someone elses recently aquired verticle laminated LB stock set, and right away I realised I had one of those sets in this batch as well. I was looking at it the other week and thought the wood grain was like nothing I had ever seen before. Of course, the lower forestock has been cut in half just like the other set. This batch of parts I bought just keeps on getting better and better.

So how common/rare were these sets? Were they from the same time period as the others?

I would post some photos, but I took the camera out to the "bunker", and now I can't find it amongst all the military junk out there. I think I will now have to buy another camera, and one which takes good closeup photos so Cantom and Badger can quit riding me over the (lack of) quality of my photos. :)
 
stencollector said:
It was my intention to try the dowel thing. I'll attempt to get the holes aligned as best I can, but it seems to me that slightly overize holes will allow proper alignment. The holes would have sufficient glue or epoxy to take up the difference.
Again, woodworking is not my strongpoint, but I have read that this is the recommended method for placing rebar into existing cement. A piece of rebar epoxied into an existing foundation is more secure than one which is merely drilled than hammered in.
Click to expand...

I am no wood mechanic but have tried that on old beater years ago...luckily there was available wood to work donw to match the surface.
Here is another idea...instead of drilling wood dowels in both ends of the cut stock, try routing a slot across both pieces of the inside barrel channel. the slot does not have to be large nor exceptionally deep. Into the slot you place piece od square stock that is reasonably tight...glue the daylights out of it before assembly. If you do the rotuing job with both pieces clamped in a jig they will match up very closely.
Just a thought.
Good looking set of wood.
Cheers
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom