Yesterday's Weapons Forums

I was at the local Big 5 and they had an #4 mk1 Savage made rifle with matching bolt. The draw back is it had the India screw through the stock. The price was 250.00 and it was import marked on the barrel.

I have not been out of the house much but is that a decent price? The bore was dirty but looked like it would clean up and the wood was matching color wise. Any thoughts on it?

Thanks

my 2 bits :

if its a decent rifle in great shape its probably an OK deal ,

if its got any draw backs the india connection is it as far as collectibility

if YOU question it dont go there , but if YOU LIKE IT , why not

I think even the wood was numbered to the rifle? And it had a decent rack number on it. I don't have the money but they do have layaway. And one of these days I might find a matching wood lower forearm. I have 2 already but another investment might be good.

numbered wood ? - that would be the forearm you look to replace , thats why the ishy screw pi$$es folks off ,

im not going to try to disuade you but there are a lot of savage enfeilds out there , id really like to see this before id go over 2 bills

Thanks for your in put. John had some wood that matched one of my other savages so I might give him a call and see if he still has them. I think I'll call the manager and see if I can get it at the sale price which if I remember right was under 200.00.

My thoughts on the rifle would be "if I want it, I'm going to buy it." The question is "why do you want it?"

I can think of the following reasons to want it:

1. I collect lee enfield rifles and this fits a spot in my collection.

2. I believe that military surplus rifles are a good investment and I'm going to resell it later and make a profit.

3. I'm a shooter and want to shoot this at my range or at military rifle competitions.

4. I'm a hunter and I'm going to sporterize the rifle to be my primary white tail rifle.

I'm sure there's more, but I think you'll get the gist from these examples.

Now the answers re the proposed rifle:

1. If you don't have one in your collection and this fits a spot, this is a good rifle as it is discretely import marked and has matching numbers. To a collector, the transverse screw is part of its history and adds to its provenance. So what if its been to India. India fought bravely with the British Army in many theatres of WW2 and while the screw is post WW2, there is nothing wrong with it having served post war in India. I have a Savage No.4 Mk1* with a South African Ownership mark on it - it doesn't make it any less collectable, if anything it adds to its rarity.

2. Military surplus with WW2 provenance will become more valuable (if un-monkeyed with) as time goes by. However, you're not likely to make much in your lifetime on this rather common example. Regarding price the lates Blue Book suggests No. 4's should sell in the $250 to $750 range depending on their condition and rarity. One of the distributors (I forget who) is selling No.4's at the moment for $159 but after you add tax and shipping you're paying $200 for a potentially mismatched unseen rifle!

3. These are military rifles so are not particularly accurate. The Savage probably has a 2 grooved barrel and would not be my choice for a military competition rifle.

4. Sporterizing military surplus rifles should be a sin sending you straight to hell - I just put this in for comparison purposes of peoples intent.

I have heard (but not tested) that with the 2 groove barrel flat based bullets perform quite well

2- grooved barrels in the Savage Lee Enfield return acceptable acuracy for the military - M.O.M. (Minute of Man). And with careful handloading can be made more accurate. However, the most accurate lee enfield rifles in standard military configuration have had five or six grooves,but this is just in my experience.

My well worn two groove savaghe delivers consistent sub MOA groups with my 150 grain Honady .312 bullets over 43.5 Grains of 4320 powder.
With modern 180 FMJ like Seller and Bellot it delivers near MOA groups out to three hundred yards. The groups would be fantastically small if not for some vertical stringing. The bullets all line up on a vertical half inch wide piece of electrical tape which I use to mark a cross in the center of my homemade targets.

I've mounted a Tasco 4x32 on this rifle using bases of my own design and hand crafted by me.

After through cleaning when I first got it I found the bore was slightly gas eroded about one third the way up, thats where the Mark 7 loads resin heat shield lube wears thin. that and a badly ovaled muzzle lead me to cut it back to 22 inches and agressively polish out the rough spots on the lands.
I used a tightly fitted seuded pigskin patch tied down tight on the jag and run through the bore while damp to mold it to the rifling. The edges of the patch were squeezed togeter and trimmed to fit into each groove so as to turn as it went like a proper lead lap would have.
A few careful passes with a piece of wet 1000 grit Silicon carbide paper (maybe a dozen or so) eliminated the roughened areas. This was a slim strip draped over the molded patch so as to sand only the center of the boad lads and no touch the edges.
This was followed by several hundred strokes with the patch loaded with a superfine polishing compound a mechanic gave me years ago. He called it "Steel Chalk", whatever it is it puts a mirror finish on steel without much removal.
Theres very little fouling with this super shiny bore, clean ups are easy.

The Bore slugs out as .304 across the lands and around .314 in the grooves.

This process requires great care and is only suitable for a two groove with broad lands.

PS
I've found that Soviet Steel core boatail bullets of about 147 grains and measuring .3125 shoot with amazing accuracy in this gun, equal or better than the Hornady.
I pulled these from old 7.62X54 ammo.

ill add that i think a decent collection needs indian rifles , i just prefer those made there to those refurbed there , but as said , it is part of the rifles history