Singer & WWII Production

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Mark Thompson
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:51 pm
First Name: Mark
Location: Nashville, TN

Singer & WWII Production

Post by Mark Thompson »

Life is not always just about cars!

This may be an interesting tidbit to some of you. I enjoy collecting guns, almost as much as tinkering with my Singer. I recently purchased a WWII British rifle with an interesting history. The Lee-Enfield was the standard issue rifle for the British in WWII. As a collector, I normally prefer guns with all matching serial numbers. In this instance, however,I was intrigued by it having a different bolt. If you are not interested in reading the entire article that follows then just skip to the last sentence in quotations.

Here is an excerpt from the description:

"This is a nice, late war Savage Lee Enfield No.4 Mk 1* in .303 British. Based on the serial number, the rifle was likely made in 1944 and the "B" stamp under the serial number indicates it was accepted into British service. It was re-imported by Century Arms sometime within the last 20 years.

The Savage produced Enfields have an interesting history:

"Savage owned J Stevens Arms Co ( of Chicopee Falls, Mass ) won a contract to supply Britain with the No4 rifles due to the bombing of Birmingham reducing British output by 50% in early 1941 - add to this the loss of many small arms due to Dunkirk."

"Output from Savage began in late 1941 and lasted only 3 years compared to the Canadian Longbranch production which lasted into the 1950's. Very early North American production resulted in some No4 Mk1 rifles but the main body of output was the war expedient No4 Mk1* which made certain concessions to the No4 design such as the cut out in the receiver for modified bolt release vs the plunger styled bolt release of the typical No4 Mk1."

This Savage Enfield has the two-groove barrel and many "S" stamped parts, including the stock, which appears to be Beech. The bolt is likely not original as it is stamped "N67 Mk II" which indicates it was made by Singer Manufacturing, a British war-time sub-contractor."

An American made rifle used by the British in WWII with a Singer bolt. There is also a Canadian reference in there as well. I thought some of our NASOC members might find this interesting.

Cheerio!
Mark Thompson
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mikeyr
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First Name: Mike
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Re: Singer & WWII Production

Post by mikeyr »

That is really COOL, I like the Singer reference.

Sounds like you have some re-loading to get to now, since the .303 British was originally a Black Powder round, have you tried Trail Boss with it yet ? it replicates Black Powder pretty well, both in size of grains to fill the case and speeds of projectile.

Ok...back to the garage...
Mike Rambour. Site Administrator
1953 Singer 4ADT (sold), 1934 Singer 9 Le Mans, 1934 Singer 1 1/2 4-Seater Sports (sold), 2009 BMW K1300GT
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