1950 CNo4 Long Branch in Wrappper

[Lee Enfield]

Personally I've never heard of Long Branch or any other No. 4 producer manufacturing separate "barreled actions" (with serial #). Is it not more likely it was separated from a complete rifle and stored in that form?

milsurpo

If this barreled action is serial numbered it was stripped of its wood & componants and stored.

"Replacent" receivers were not serial numbered until use.

I would like to see the date on the Montreal ord. Depot labels, I would bet that they aren't dated 1950/51.

I've seen or owned 1941, 1944, 1945, 195_ receivers which demonstrate this, and I've seen FN c1 & FN c2 receivers to demonstrate that this practice continued into the FN era.

During original manufacture, likely not.

But in the 1950's, LB made a bunch of stuff like this before switching over to FN production. The idea was when a rifle was no longer serviceable and sent to repairable reserve, there would be barelled actions to transplant wood, etc. onto and keep the gear going during the FN transition. They aren't common, but not particularly valuable unless made into a rifle.

Food for thought - when you had to pay to register stuff during the registry, my father and I chopped a few of these on the chop saw and stashed the barrels away to put onto target rifles once the bore started becoming less accurate. It wasn't worth the registration fee back when complete rifles were selling $100-150 and registration was $25 each.

I know a guy who chopped at least 1000 no 4s for their barrels and parts.

He's still selling the parts.