high speed cruise wrote:

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First gun I bought was an Enfield No. 4....but like many DUMMIES I had a friend sand and stain that (really rough) stock....now of course, I really regret it. More so since the stock and receiver had matching numbers.

BUT, just ordered two stock sets from AIM, will put the best together I can and "restore" the old gal. It has the older, flip up micrometer rear sights and a bright, good bore.

hsc

How does the refinished stock look?
I ran across a sporterized No. 4 recently that had the fore end cut down but was otherwise untouched.
If the bore looks good I may buy it and restock it.

99car wrote:

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I was real lucky with a No4 that had a chopped forearm, but a matching butt stock in good shape. I think it was Springfield Sporters that had a semi-finished beech forearm that was very close in color and grain to the rifle's rear end.

I'd been looking for a Beech fore end for a No.1 Mk III I have which has a really beautiful Beech buttstock. One place I checked tells me these were stock sets that were used in a refurbish of No. 1 rifles around the 1950s. The proper wood for my 1915 being English walnut. So I'm trying to piece together one stock set of each type of wood.

Beech can be unstable when new but becomes very stable over the years, if it doesn't warp within its first ten years or so it probably never will. I've seen one White beech fore end so badly warped that it took a nose dive in front of the band and the rifle it was on wouldn't hit the ground if you dropped it. The only cure for that fore end was chopping it off and using it as a sporter, The rifle was extremely accurate with the fore end chopped. Thats the rifle I'm restoring now. I kept track of it for over sixteen years because it has the best and tightest bore I've seen on a No.1 almost pristine, it slugs at exactly .303 and .311 with no signs of Cordite erosion or cord wear. No FTR marks either, which is a minor mystery in itself. The finish on all metal parts appears to be original with the expected patina but no bright spots from wear, at least 98%, and the action is as tight as the day it left the factory. All matching parts, though I did buy a replacement Mk III type adjustable rear sight. Also picked up a very nice PH5A with adjustable Apeture for target work.

I'm thinking the rifle didn't see much actual service, probably returned to stores due to a bad stock and bedding problems or something of that nature and got passed over many times over the years.
Its deadly accurate with every load I and the previous owner have tried in it. I've even suspected it may have been a target rifle at one time before the bad fore end warped.

The Buttstock is a very unusual Beech that has strange highlights and wicked tiger stripping, the grain looks like multi colored silts on a streambed with gold dust flakes. You can get lost staring into it.
This may be from a rare fungus that attacked Beech Trees at the turn of the century. In the advanced stages this fungus turns the wood into separately colored sections divided by borders of nearly black lines. It looks like the wood had been sawed into geometric shapes and died various colors then reassembled using a black glue. A stock like that would be awesome, sort of like the WW1 losenge camoflage pattern used on some German planes.