Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I will let you know when it is in my sweaty hands!

I won't celebrate until I have it in my hands and it really is a No.5 and not a made up one. My friend truly don't know anything about the guns and he is just going by what I remember ( from 20 years ago) and what the owner says. He didn't have access to the internet when he was offered the gun.
At least it is like new...whatever it is!

This is an extract from the late Skip Stratton's site. Alsonote No.5 Mk 1 rear sites are micrometer type marked to 800 yards.

No. 5 “Jungle Carbine” Overall length 39-1/2 inches; 20-1/2 inch barrel with flash hider. Rubber buttplate; short fore-end. An honest No. 5 rifle (or “Jungle Carbine”) has lightening flutes cut in the barrel knox form and extensive milling done to the receiver to lighten it. (Take the handguard off and look for the barrel flutes.) Also, an honest No. 5 will be electro-engraved “No5MKI” on the left side of the receiver and will not have “No. 4” stamped or engraved anywhere on it. In addition, an honest No. 5 will bear the proper manufacturer’s code: “(ROF)F” for Fazakerley or “M47C” for BSA-Shirley. Finally, the barrel band will be only 8 inches in front of the receiver ring--rather than 10-3/4 inches as on a No. 4 rifle. In the 1950s and 1960s, Golden State Arms Co. of Pasadena, California modified quite a few No. 4 rifles by shortening the barrels, adding flash hiders, and shortening the fore-ends. Some were equipped with Fajen or Bishop sporter stocks, as well. These were called various names, such as “No. 4 Jungle Carbine,” or “Santa Fe Mountain Carbine,” or “Mountain Rifle,” but all have “Golden State Arms” and “Santa Fe” roll-stamped on the barrel. Nice aftermarket conversions, but strictly that. Currently, Navy Arms is doing the same thing with No. 4 rifles and selling them as “No. 5 Jungle Carbines.” At arm’s length they look genuine, but they have standard No. 4 rifle markings and DO NOT have the lightening flutes on the barrel or the lightening cuts on the receiver. These are strictly fakes--or thinly disguised “replicas.”

Here are a pair of No.5's from my collection. One is a Fazakerley and one is a BSA. Bothe are unissued and mint, and I paid $500 for each!

I can't believe the deal fell through! Just as my buddy went to pay for it, a friend of the gun's owner decides that he wanted it! Just for that I hope it was a fake!!!!

me too, but then one must always look at these experiences as divine intervention, there was a reason it was so cheap, and better it not be your problem, there will be another opportunity.

neil --i want to see more of that first rifle you posted [BSA?] something is askew in the photo me thinks - is that really the BSA? specifically the left receiver shot is what im speaking to ..........looks a bit like a mkVI to me ----you are a lucky man indeed.

IS this what you wanta pic of?