Hey all, I got myself a new rifle to add to the collection, so I thought I'd share some photos. It's a 1942 Savage made Lee Enfield No 4 Mk I.
Beautiful rifle.................God I want one too.................damn things have to be so expensive
That is in fact a fairly scarce rifle. Savage only made No4 Mk1 rifles for a short time (from the "0C" series to the "13C" series), and represented about 10% of Savage's total production of No4 rifles. After that production changed to the No4 Mk1*. The Mk1* had some simplifications -- most critical of which was changing the method of bolt removal from a plunger at the rear of the action to a simple notch cut out of the bolt race near the breech. As a "3C" series, your rifle is also early enough to not be marked with the "US Property" marking which was applied to nearly all Savage No4s starting from the "4C" series.
Savage received a contract to produce No4 Mk1s in March 1941. Material losses at Dunkirk were massive, and the bombing of the BSA plant in Birmingham had reduced No4 output by approximately 50% and Britain was forced to look overseas to meet the war material requirements. After 3 years, at the end of June 1944, Savage ceased production and all parts on-hand were sent to Long Branch arsenal near Toronto (Canada) for final assembly. The first contract for 300,000 was issued in March 1941. A few thousand (10-12k?) rifles from this contract were produced before the Lend-Lease Act took effect. Rifles produced after this were marked "US PROPERTY" on top of the receiver. At this point the contract was expanded to 420,000 rifles. An additional 720,000 were ordered in mid 1942. There are a few other contracts which I have not mentioned, including a small number of rifles for Nationalist China IIRC. Total Savage No4 production totaled around 1.1 million.
During the 1940 crisis we did send large quantities (615,000) of the M1917 Enfield rifle (caliber .30-06) to Britain under cash-and-carry arrangements with the British Purchasing Commission. An additional 119,000 M1917s were sent to Britain in 1941. Some M1903 Springfields were supplied in 1941 as well, some of them going to New Zealand and Singapore as well as the British Home Guard.
Thanks for the information. You know, that is the second time I heard mine is a fairy scarce rifle! I had no clue. Mine does have the US PROPERTY mark on it.
Thanks. The Lee-Enfield is one of the things I bring up when people talk about the US being "largely disarmed" prior to Pearl Harbor. The truck with a "tank" sign on it is another. (We didn't waste real tanks to train recruits.) Drain pipe mortars don't send rockets down range in the wrong direction when manned by boots. Etc.