Price check on minty milsurp please

tigertrout

tigertrout

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Depends on which factory. If it is a long branch it will prob fetch more than a faz or English one. If a savage it should still fetch well also. IMHO I think given not knowing more than what you put down... I would guess $600-$900 if guaranteed unfired/unissued. They probably will be asking more but that is where my money comfort zone is.

Edited.. 5 groove bore.. Nice... I would pay $900 for sure. If the bore is mint.
 
If it has New Zealand stampings then it is most certainly issued- unless it "fell off the wagon" and went missing along the way. Something sounds suspicious. Not to mention that Long Branch switched to the 2- groove barrel, but I can't say right off exactly when- somebody surely knows if a 24L - series would have a 5-groove?
 
This rifle was of course issued, the word un-issued seems to mean different things to many people.

I have seen LB rifles with 5 groove barrels in multiple different years of wartime manufacture, I have no idea why they used both 2 and 5 groove barrels during the same manufacture time frame!
 
I have also wondered why some LB rifles have 2 groove and some have 5 groove barrels.

Many seem to have 2 groove barrels.

Were the barrels all made in house?

Or perhaps they made their own 2 grooves and had outside suppliers also making barrels?

Any one know?
 
I also don't feel that having New Zealand numbers stamped on a Long Branch is value enhancing. I've seen lots of them and personally prefer the rifles without it.

The NZ numbers are in a much larger font and I never really understood why they felt the need to add them. It's not like they weren't already numbered.

What...they couldn't read our numbers?

Note that the bolt handle has a number stamped on the top face...
 
2 Grooving was a wartime introduction by the British to save manufacture time. Whether 2 groove or 5 groove depended on the manufacturer and the age of their boring equipment. Wartime plant conversion were likely 2 groove, while plants that made enfield before the #4 were 5 groove. Long Branch had both types of borers in their process. In the 50s there was even a 6 groove using Inglis bore equipment purchased surplus after Inglis got out of Bren guns for washing machines. 2 Groove process was also used by savage and appears on Savage LE and 1903s.

Just my 10 minutes of Google this morning!
 
cantom said:
I also don't feel that having New Zealand numbers stamped on a Long Branch is value enhancing. I've seen lots of them and personally prefer the rifles without it.

The NZ numbers are in a much larger font and I never really understood why they felt the need to add them. It's not like they weren't already numbered.

What...they couldn't read our numbers?

Note that the bolt handle has a number stamped on the top face...
Click to expand...

I think it was because the New Zealand military had their own rack numbering system and wanted to keep track of their rifles with that numbering system.
 
fraserdw said:
2 Grooving was a wartime introduction by the British to save manufacture time. Whether 2 groove or 5 groove depended on the manufacturer and the age of their boring equipment. Wartime plant conversion were likely 2 groove, while plants that made enfield before the #4 were 5 groove. Long Branch had both types of borers in their process. In the 50s there was even a 6 groove using Inglis bore equipment purchased surplus after Inglis got out of Bren guns for washing machines. 2 Groove process was also used by savage and appears on Savage LE and 1903s.

Just my 10 minutes of Google this morning!
Click to expand...

This above explanation makes sense, they were probably turning out five or so 2 groove barrels to every one 5 groove barrel and when they were putting the rifles together they just grabed a barrel from a pile or bin and did not care how many grooves it was.

I also know that when Savage stopped making No.4's they sent all their numerous left over parts to Longbranch who then added them to their production of rifles, so this is why you can sometimes find Longbranch rifles with Savage marked parts.
 
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