Longbranch sporter(newly aquired) new picture +Range report

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ianwd

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Ok just given a longbranch sporter, i confess i dont know a whole lot about them, anyways heres some pictures and im sure you will be horified .
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I thought Longbranch was Canadian made , but on the wrist it says England ?
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someone welded a blob on this sear and filed it to make it easier to grip?
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and an oddball magazine i never seen before ?
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its a 43 reciever and a 42 barrel 2 grouve

so i took the old girl for a try out , was a fairly calm sunny day , this is the first group @ i
100 mtrs she works smooth and shoots prety good even for my tired old eyes
as it was already a bubba i diddnt feel too bad about putting a cheek riser on the stock which i had kicking around.i am quite pleased with the way it performs. and for the time being will leave her just as she is .
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That is a Cno7 magazine follower for loading .22 lr rounds single shot. You need a different mag follower for feeding 10 .303 rounds.

The mag body isn't marked .22 is it? If it is it's worth a fair bit more than a normal .303 magazine.

England means nothing...it was made in Canada. I think it was stamped when exported from England or imported into the US.

Uncut barrel = good.

Cocking piece = easily changed.

Drilled and tapped for scope = too bad.

Weaver K4 scope = good.

Overall...a nice sporter, probably shoots well and could be left in it's present condition for hunting.
 
I'm not horrified. It's not irretrieveably sportered - all the metal is there, full length barrel. It's a Long Branch so it was manufactured in Canada. The stamp "England" on the butt socket probably means it was in British service and sold off surplus there.
 
the mag dont have any markings on it , appart from a faint possibly B on the latch plate? on the back of the mag .
the bolt does match and the scope is a weaver marksman 4x prety crisp too . but ill have to wait till weekend to see how she shoots.
but even sporterd its nice to have a bit of canadian History
 
It did some time overseas too. The 'England' stamp means it was exported from there. Nothing to do with Brit service or Long Branch. Might have been bubba'd there as well. Except for the glossy stock, easily removed, it looks like it was bubba'd by somebody who knew what they were doing. Front of the forestock isn't the usual hack job.
It have the BNP stamps too?
Check the headspace before you shoot it. A matching bolt doesn't mean the bolt head hasn't been changed since 1943.
You could carefully file the blob of weld off. Or just leave it. It won't bother anything.
 
cantom said:
That is a Cno7 magazine follower for loading .22 lr rounds single shot. You need a different mag follower for feeding 10 .303 rounds.

The mag body isn't marked .22 is it? If it is it's worth a fair bit more than a normal .303 magazine.

...
Click to expand...

That is the real find. The follower is unique to Canadian No.7 rifles. Most of the followers were lost or thrown out. The rest of the rifle is an ordinary hunting rifle (and probably a decent shooter too).
 
maple_leaf_eh said:
That is the real find. The follower is unique to Canadian No.7 rifles. Most of the followers were lost or thrown out. The rest of the rifle is an ordinary hunting rifle (and probably a decent shooter too).
Click to expand...

well i figure the rifle must have been a good shooter or the owner wouldnt have gone to the effort of putting the scope on it and i can buff the weld off with my dremel .
the barrel does have some bnp markings on it on top and right at the end after the bayonet lug , bnp.303 2.222" 18.5 tones per square inch
and a very faint ,prob sanded FR stamped into butstock maybe a letter in front but cant make it out .
so where can i find a nice number 7 to match the magazine ?
thanks for all the input guys its appreciated .
 
Rifle right now is a damfine sporter that will anchor anything in North America with one round.

It is also a restorable military-surplus rifle AND a chunk of history, all at once.

A .303 mag platform and spring is worth perhaps 10 bucks; somebody is sure to have a spare. That .22 SS platform is pure gold; there were never very many made and most of those have been shredded, thanks to the UN and the Liberal Party of Canada.

Scope-screw holes in the charger bridge and the receiver can be plugged with PLUG SCREWS, should you prefer the uncluttered look of an original rifle. For a permanent plug, you screw in the plugscrews, stack them, silversolder or tack-MIG them in place and hand-file off anything that protrudes, then a touch of Birchwood Casey Paste-Blue. If it were my rifle, I would probably leave the holes so I could use a scope if I wanted to.

Put some decent wood onto it and you have pretty close to a poor-man's version of a WW2 sniper rifle. Or, as-is, it ought to be a damfine hunter. Grab a set of wood for it when the stuff gets in; this rifle has potential either way.

And be sure to have fun.
.
 
Mag marked "22"

I have had one of these kicking around since high school days and was never sure why I kept it as it wouldn't feed .303.
It is in similar condition to the one shown above, with some surface rust on the corners and a big 22 stamped on the left side.
Any idea what it is worth?
Geoff
 
Geoff B said:
I have had one of these kicking around since high school days and was never sure why I kept it as it wouldn't feed .303.
It is in similar condition to the one shown above, with some surface rust on the corners and a big 22 stamped on the left side.
Any idea what it is worth?
Geoff
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Unfortunate about the rust. Usually $75 and up, haven't seen one for sale for a while though.

As for the magazine in the OP's rifle, not worth anything more than normal, but the follower separately might be.
 
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nice rifle

That 303 round is lethal ony any reasonable game stay with 180gr bullets and enjoy a rifle that helped save the world. i enjoy the hell out of my no 4 sporter.
 
Wasn't sure where else to post this comment :redface: , but you Milsurp guys are so welcoming and gracious that I figured you'd be okay with it here....:D

Anyone else notice how much (and how fast ! :eek: ) the barrels on some of those SMLE sporters can tend to heat up ? :yingyang:

My "go-to" SMLE sporter has a fair amount of fore-wood still on it that tends to dissipate the heat, so when I fired a pair of "further" cut-down SMLE sporters on the weekend, it indeed surprised me to see those barrels heat-up, and those groups open-on-up...
 
I don't know if they "heat" more than other milsurps. Certainly less than a No.1 MK3 as they have a lighter barrel than a No.4. Not a concern with a hunting rifle really though. If the first three are on the money, it's meat in the pan. Looks like yours shoots great. Enjoy it.
 
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