Mystery Jungle Carbine

Drofseh

Drofseh

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Victoria, BC
I'm borrowing this rifle from my father right now and I am curious to try and find out a bit more about it.
It belonged to my grandfather and he linked to tinker with his things so I've always assumed it was a No.5 that he sporterized
It has no markings at all that I can find except for what I think is a 7 right on top of the chamber.
It has the lightening cuts around the chamber, and on bother sides of the receiver under the rear sight. I am assuming that it has the cuts under the wood as well but I have not taken off the forearm yet.
The rear sight is marked out to 800.
I forgot to take a picture of the bolt but the bolt handle has a flat spoon shaped end not a hollow knob, the cocking piece is rectangular.
The furniture consists of a stock with a brass end cap and a forearm that he checkered. There is no furniture that goes over top of the barrel.
No flash hider and you can see where the barrel was cut and the muzzle with the porting and hooded front sight are attached.

Any thoughts on what this is/was? Thanks in advance for your help.





 
It is a No. 5 rifle that has been customized. In the course of polishing for reblue, the markings disappeared.
 
Grandpa did some filing and smoothing on the action, and the buffing wheel did it's work on the relief cuts in the barrel. The DIY "muzzle brake" is sort of cute, you don't see that very often. Grandpa didn't scribe and punch before drilling though! ;)

What's the wood?
 
Thanks for the replies.

I don't think this was ever his favourite rifle. His work on his other firearms is of much better quality.
My understanding is that he found the recoil on this one too severe for his taste so he added the brake to calm it down.

It's actually a very effective brake and makes the rifle quite pleasant for the shooter. You don't want to be the guy sitting at the next shooting table though, or the next several after that. It's one of the loudest rifles I've ever encountered and you can feel the pressure wave a good 30-40 feet away

Not sure what the wood is. I am completely hopeless at identifying wood.
Could be the original wood that he chopped down, checkered, and put a new butt plate on. That's the sort of thing he would've done.
 
It looks to me as though the "overpressure" hole in the receiver has been filled in the last picture, but it looks ok in the first. If it is filled in, it should be opened up again.
 
stevebc said:
It looks to me as though the "overpressure" hole in the receiver has been filled in the last picture, but it looks ok in the first. If it is filled in, it should be opened up again.
Click to expand...

The hole on the left side of the receiver at the back of the chamber? It is open. Thanks for looking out for me.
I guess between the angle of the photo and the flash illuminating the inside of the hole it looks a little grayed out.
 
"Any thoughts on what this is/was?"

It IS a travesty and it WAS a No5 Mk1 as others have said. Clean it up, and shoot the hell out of it. No value other than fun fun fun, and who doesn't love fun??
 
The charger bridge has been ground back as well: you can see that just behind the thumb cut out on the left receiver wall the beveled top surface is not parallel with the original bevel ahead of the thumb cut out. Grandpa probably didn't intend to use chargers, but of course needed to keep the support for the backsight when folded down.

I see some welding discoloration on the left receiver wall too, in the same area.
 
Drofseh said:


Click to expand...

Now that is some kind of interesting! That doesn't look like an Enfield handle at all! The bolt body ect, ect certainly is, but that handle is quite different. Notice the down turn on the arm top and bottom is a smooth curved uninterrupted arc, an Enfield handle has a flat profile on the top edge near the bolt body and an interruption on the underside where the bolt handle rests against (nearly against) the wrist.
Clearly the ball end could have been easily profiled with a file (squaring the end as well as taking the ball to a "spoon") but the handle arm is a different story...any serial #'s on it? The bolt looks blued rather than suncorite as well.
 
plinker 777 said:
Now that is some kind of interesting! That doesn't look like an Enfield handle at all! The bolt body ect, ect certainly is, but that handle is quite different. Notice the down turn on the arm top and bottom is a smooth curved uninterrupted arc, an Enfield handle has a flat profile on the top edge near the bolt body and an interruption on the underside where the bolt handle rests against (nearly against) the wrist.
Clearly the ball end could have been easily profiled with a file (squaring the end as well as taking the ball to a "spoon") but the handle arm is a different story...any serial #'s on it? The bolt looks blued rather than suncorite as well.
Click to expand...

It has these markings on the cocking piece. Not sure if that check mark sort of shape on the underside of the handle arm is intentional striking or not. It also has a 2 on the bolt head but I understand that's just for headspacing.

 
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The stamp on the body closest to the rear is a Factory location stamp. Pretty sure yours is "L" imposed on top of "B", which indicates the LongBranch factory in Mississauga ON. I didn't know LB made jungle carbines, but I'm no expert on them (kick like a mule).
From the underside I can tell that this is indeed an Enfield bolt handle. Your dear ole granddad put a lot of work into that to get it to look so nice.

Hard to tell without serial numbers, but if the bolt is a match to the rifle...its a Canadian LongBranch. Someone who knows more will be along shortly to confirm whether or not Canada made the No5.

The marking under the handle is intentional, don't know what it means, but is certainly intentional.

Smellie, Buffdog, Biged...a little help here pleazzzzz. :)
 
Bolt is not original to this rifle, LB never made No.5's, No5 bolts have a hollowed out ball just like a P14, the guy who ground down the bolt handle to look fancy just used a spare LB one or one with a LB striker on it. This rifle is sadly now a abomination, best just to use it as a hunting rifle and move on.
 
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