Desporterizing LE No4. - what do you look for?

[tiriaq]

Back in the day, stock sets were readily available and inexpensive. Brand new barrels were 3/$100. Made up a number of rifles.
Nowadays, getting a good forend and handguards is pricey. And that is just to assemble a representative specimen. To restore a rifle, using correct parts is challenging.

 

[milsurpo]

The couple I've done had near perfect bores which are not rare or hard to find. It would be a great help to have repaired the draws and had a real close look at several factory fit, uncut forends before tackling the fitting of a NOS or custom forend. A solid used but uncut forend would be a better choice if you could find one. Even starting with a rifle's original forend, following repairs, it can be challenging to get it shooting accurately again.

milsurpo

 

[bearhunter]

Back in the day, stock sets were readily available and inexpensive. Brand new barrels were 3/$100. Made up a number of rifles.
Nowadays, getting a good forend and handguards is pricey. And that is just to assemble a representative specimen. To restore a rifle, using correct parts is challenging.

I know a building on Dunsmuir Street where there are a few thousand No4 MkI barrels, likely all four groove. They would be tough to get at though.

Alan Lever sold them to the contractor to be used as rebar.

That was 55 years ago. Lever had a rail car load of barrels, new in white condition and nobody wanted them. He sold them for a handsome profit to the building contractor, who also felt like he received a bargain because he got them for about half what the hard to get rebar would have cost at the time.