Mystery No4 Mk1 308 conversion....calling all experts

In 1962 while at Borden I bought a No. 4 from Battery Sgt "Scoff" Smith. It was a parts gun, LB parts assembled on a Brit. receiver. $15. Bought a PH sight from Nelson Colville at Connaught for $25. Passed the rifle on to my brother. He debated having the rifle converted to 7.62; opted to send it to Colville in Winnipeg to have a new LB barrel .303 installed. He shot it for one summer. A few years ago gave it back to me.
I recall going with Scoff Smith to visit an armourer at Connaught. He took a bottle with him, left with a brand new LB 6 groove .303 barrel in a cardboard tube.

Somewhere I have a copy of the DCRA newsletter describing different bedding systems tried in No. 4s converted to 7.62. These were internal tweaks - the rifle had to retain issue external appearance.

I have a one piece Lee Enfield (No. 7 receiver), same pattern as Ganderite's rifles, Canjar trigger, etc. I believe Jim Duggan set up rifles in this pattern.
 
tiriaq said:
If two piece, they're pretty close to an L39.
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Ya. I made something like that for my son. I had all the bits and pieces laying around and in the junk drawer. It shoots well, too.
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The long barreled No. 4 conversions often used Schultz & Larson or Enfield barrels.
The hammer forged Enfield barrels were still available in the '90s, iirc. I think that was when I last bought one. Might still be some kicking around.
 
tiriaq said:
The long barreled No. 4 conversions often used Schultz & Larson or Enfield barrels.
The hammer forged Enfield barrels were still available in the '90s, iirc. I think that was when I last bought one. Might still be some kicking around.
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Me too; it was unthreaded and lacked the Knox Form. They were damned good barrels and very long-lived from what I heard.
 
tiriaq said:
The long barreled No. 4 conversions often used Schultz & Larson or Enfield barrels.
The hammer forged Enfield barrels were still available in the '90s, iirc. I think that was when I last bought one. Might still be some kicking around.
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I have one of those Heavy barrels on a Martini. I believe they were for the L42 rifles as they had .308 bore diameters.

The one I have shows the hammer forging spirals on the outside and is black.

I've chambered it for the 30-40 Krag cartridge. At the time, those barrels were cheap and of excellent quality. They came in a sealed, waxed heavy canvas sleeve.

I never did shoot that Martini much, only a few hundred rounds. I had a half dozen cases of US surplus ammo to shoot but it became scarce and far to valuable for me to shoot on a casual basis, so I sold it all to Allan Lever, who broke up the crates and sold the individual packs of 40 rounds separately.

I've been thinking about taking that barrel off the Martini and building a faux L42, with a slightly short barrel.

One thing, those barrels are on the hard side, so care will need to be taken with the reamer.
 
Thank you for all of the fantastic posts, much appreciated!

I finally brought it home, the receiver has indeed been opened up for the feed lips of a 308 magazine. Who knows what mag it had when this when done. Current magazine is someone’s attempt to shove a partial 308 mag inside the 303 mag with a custom follower. Unfortunately it doesn’t work too well. It has 8 round capacity but they don’t stay in or feed properly. Only works with one round 🤣.

I was wondering, if I might be able to convert an AR10 magazine to work, any thoughts?

Bolt # matches barrel and receiver!

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Standard NATO ball.
Competition was slow fire, single round loading. It was later that conversions to magazine occurred.
If you find an issue or Sterling magazine, the cost will bring a tear to your eye.
 
FUGLY, and not even close to being the same on each side. No change was made to those areas by the Brits when machining out to fit their 7.62 mag. Could be cleaned on a mill I guess.

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new said:
When they were target shooting, what weight of bullet did they use?
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The DCRA has evolved and changed rifles several times. At first and for many decades, the only rifle tolerated or legal for score was an issue service rifle. The shooters got free army ammunition, but they had to belong to a regimental rifle association. So many rounds per member every year, and all brass had to be accounted. As a boy, i helped my father and other men in the rifle association sort empties. They had to account for a high percentage of empties to be allowed their allotment of ammunition for the next shooting season. The rifles changed after WW2 with two classes, imaginatively known as Service Rifle A and Service Rifle B. In one, it was as issued. The other allowed Parker Hale target sights. As has been mentioned, SRA and SRB changed again with the FN C1 rifle, the DCRA Conversion rifles, target rifles, and more recently TR-O and F-Class. Issue 5.56 FMJ and 7.62 were available for many years, but that changed too. Now it is a reloader's game as much as a rifleman's game.
 
The best thing you can do is hunt down a L42A1 mag it will run you about $300 to $350 and fit it to your rifle like I did with mine. In the Enfield sniper book it shows you where to releave for clearance for the new lip positions. Don't listen to the talk about how rare they are to fine they are out there but over priced the quickest place to find one is in the UK if you can't locate one close.
 

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Look at the rifle company called Armalon, based out of the UK. They made No.4’s with the ability to take AR mags. Maybe it’ll spark an idea on how to do it with AR 10 mags
 
Wow! So much good info in this thread. Mentioning George, aka smellie. I visited George at his home a few times. A walking encyclopedia, he was.

Thanks fellas, for sharing your experience and knowledge. I bought a DCRA many years ago, from Ken at the old K&M Shooting Shop outside of Moosomin. Ken & Marshall were great guys. Ken would phone me and say he had such and such a rifle at a price I couldn't say no to, and it would be on the bus the next day. Ken knew I had a weak spot for old milsurps.
 
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