Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Has anyone ever seen a Longbranch No.4 with a "US" stamped on the receiver ring?




If so, what can you tell me about it?

Thanks

nope , but id be interested as well to know about her - she looks very nice

This does look to be a military stamping, but I do remember seeing some surplus rifles that had been stamped before sale with the country of origin.
The Long Branch rifles weren't made in the US but there were so many nearly identical Savage manufacture rifles that if rifles were being stamped before sale some Long branch rifles might get mixed in with Savage rifles and all stamped with a US if it did not already bear the US Property markings of the Savage rifles.

As we've seen unusual markings with letter initials as a code for the rifles judged condition, like EY emergency use, and ZF for rifles that were beyond repair, theres a small possibility that US might mean Un-Safe.

Looking over posts on other forums I found that most of the US marked Longbranch rifles seen previously were badly worn rifles Believed to have been used as drill rifles.

A lot of savage rifles showed up here some years back being sold off to be stripped for usable parts.
The rifles looked fine except for a steel plug driven into the chamber and lightly tack welded.
When a friend knocked the plug out of the chamber of one of these rifles he found a very good bore with no wear to speak of but badly dinged chamber.
Believing the rifle could be put back in shooting condition he rebarreled it, but then found the action body was so far out of spec that no combination of bolt or bolt head ,including a new bolt body with No.3 bolthead, could bring it to anywhere near max acceptable headspace.

I figure these rifles had either failed proof by having excessive set back, or in some cases failed the minimum accuracy requirements, and ended up being DP'ed while never having been issued, or issued and sent back as defective after very little use in the field.

Ordinarily canadian issued rifles that developed non repairable defects would have a hardened steel pin run from top to bottom through receiver ring and chamber then relegated to Drill Purpose only.

The rifle in question may be okay, but with the reports of so many like it being badly out of spec or worn out, I'd have it throughly checked out before firing.

I've read all the replies on the different forums about this rifle. IMHO the US mark appears to be a US property type mark. The US for unserviceable would be smaller and not necessarily well placed. Proof it, tied to large rubber tire and a long rope.

...and cross your fingers when you pull it...

that is not the location that the "US PROPERTY" marking was placed , it was on the left reciever wall ,

ok , i didnt realise that , and im still skeptical only because why would we need to have them ship us longbranches when we were making savages right here ?

not intending to be argumentative [i dont do that] but have you got some references to this stuff in writing i can look at ?

oddly enough my father spoke of "enfeilds" as well , come to find out later he was talking about M1917s , these were common training issue in WWII and all over the islands in the pacific .

when he began 'collecting' , long after the war , he found a "springfield" and an "enfield" as a nostalgic 'rememberance' to hang over the fireplace , he mentioned they were a little differant than he remembered but chalked it up to all those years between ,

later as i became knowledgeable we expanded those discussions only to find that the "springfield" he had used was an M1903A3 and what he got surplus was a WWI M1903 / likewise what he used as an "enfield" was an M1917 and what he got surplus was a WWI SMLE , I still have both ,

while i found it disconcerting that he hadnt known i came to realise as a young guy from rural iowa quite familiar with the 12ga shotgun and a 22cal he knew nothing about battle rifles ,

likewise his service firearm was a 1911 colt in an M-3 shoulder holster and 50 cal machine guns turret mounted to top-bottom-and tail of a B29 superfortress , this meant he had a gunsight in his hand that was aimed out his blister on the left side of the aircraft hydraulically linked to the turrets ,

no real chance to learn much about the rifles they used to train stateside with or those they shot sharks with off the saipan garbage dump ,

im not saying this is the answer to this issue , but i have found a lot of old vets who only 'knew' their own firearm and little to nothing of the others that were issued .

Take this with a grain of salt as I am by no means ANY authority on Enfields......but The stamp doesn't look right to be a "US Property" stamp to me. Also I have a US marked Savage shotgun & it has the "P" over the flaming bomb & U.S. (with periods) on the LH side of the receiver, along with a "P" over flaming bomb on the side of the barrel. The font is much smaller than what appears on your No.4 Mk1* as well.