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Zed View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Zed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 22 2016 at 12:07pm
That's a great looking rifle Pedro. I'd love to get a "new" No4 Mk2; but I'd have to sell something else to make room in the safe! 
I was considering one last year when the L39A1 popped up, so I jumped on that instead. 

The mag looks as if it's got a homemade loading plate; an odd modification! Not sure what country would require that. Not France for sure and I doubt Germany; quite a lot of arms are imported from Germany to France by some specialists in military arms. I've never seen anything like this mentioned before.
but anyway a replacement will get you to the range and rebuild the original if possible.
You could try either Valmont or EFD in the UK for spares.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pedro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 22 2016 at 1:36pm
Cheers, Zed. Yes, it does seem to be a strange loading plate. I believe this was done to a number of rifles but for the life of me I can't recall which country they were altered for. I know some went to Germany, hence I included that, but if not there, my vague memory tells me it was a Scandinavian country. Of course I guess it could have been to comply with legislation at sometime that isn't applicable today.
It is a lovely looking piece of kit, but all things being equal, I would have gone for the L39A1 too. Actually, all things being equal, I'd have got them both! I did get a nice bayonet for it from Valmont. I see EFD has an unfired No4 Mk2 for sale, should you be able to make that room!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pedro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 22 2016 at 8:45pm
Found another rifle advertised for sale that has had the same thing done to the magazine. Here the seller says this was done as it came from Europe. So maybe this was done there. But again doesn't mention which country. (It's sold by the way.) Here's the link. Obviously part of the same batch, the serial number is only a couple of hundred off mine.
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Zed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 22 2016 at 11:24pm
I have a No4 Mk1/2 so adding a Mk2 would be nice, but the wife tells me it's not a necessityCry.
I've bought a couple of rifles from EFD; but their "new" mk2 is expensive at 2000 pounds. Thats double what I paid for the L39!!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pedro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 23 2016 at 6:58am
You're right Zed, much more expensive than mine too. I guess a lot of the price is in the fact that it's never been fired. Which means if you bought it and wanted to retain it's value, then you wouldn't be able to fire it. Purely an investment to look at now and again. So maybe, just maybe, your wife has a valid point.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Zed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 23 2016 at 12:12pm
There is one for sale in France, it's been re-imported from the USA. It is with the company that was offering one last year; but at the time I called them the rifles were still in the USA and they could not confirm the final price; which put me off going further. However the price they are asking now is much better than EFD. But you'd need to see both rifles close up to be sure of what your getting.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Shamu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 23 2016 at 2:28pm
I actually "bit the bullet" with mine. I always wanted MY No4, not a used one.
I finally found a mummy wrap un-fired (yeah, right) the ROF Fazakerly left the proof firing residue in the bore for me to remove laterPig No4 Mk2 from 1955, actually really close to the one shown.

Well I removed it from the wrap, stripped & cleaned everything & broke it in. Now here values have increased so rapidly & so dramatically that its actually worth more now unwrapped & fired than I paid for it in ex-factory condition.

Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pedro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 23 2016 at 3:47pm
That's a mighty fine rifle there Shamu.
 
Now... I have bitten the bullet and set about my "seized" single shot magazine. As correctly diagnosed above, an upturned "u" shaped long piece of metal was fixed in place by rivets to act as the single shot tray to place a round on, so closing the bolt would feed it into the chamber. There were two rivets, with holes opposite which were used when fixing the rivets. The rivet head on the outside was then filed down to be flush(ish) to the sides of the magazine. To make it hard to extract the mag from the rifle, some lumps of solder were put on each end of the magazine.
 
So, I drilled both rivets out initially. The actual location of the rivets was hard to determine exactly, due to them and the surrounding area being filed. I also set about the tray on top, drilling along the middle, to in effect, cut the piece of metal in two. This would then give me access to the inside of the rivets, which helped. With a bit of a faff, the offending piece of metal was extracted. Here's a picture of it. The ragged edges were where it was joined and I drilled it into two. (more to follow...)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pedro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 23 2016 at 3:59pm
The good news (by this time I was wanting some as the holes in my mag were looking big and ugly) is that underneath the single feed tray, I found a spring and follower. The next task was to break out the Dremel and some thin files to tidy up the holes, so that the spring and follower could be inserted again in working order. That took a while, but eventually I managed that. I also had to set about parts of the mag body with a pair of pliers (I know...I know) and a bit of wood and a few minor taps with a hammer as the previous operation had resulted in it being a little misshapen at the top.
Thankfully that all went fairly well. I was then able to put the spring and follower in and that did it's thing. I had also ground off the lumps of solder on the back and front of the mag, so it fitted into the rifle. Here's a couple of shots of the mag body after I had removed the single shot tray and mid-fiddling with it to get it the right shape. (more to follow).
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pedro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 23 2016 at 4:13pm
As you can see, there's some terrible holes there, which I shall have to tackle sometime (or more correctly, get someone more skilled than me to tackle). The good news is that all the ugly stuff is hidden when the mag is in the rifle.
 
Anyone reading this and having any experience of altering mags will, I expect, have already guessed what my next problem was. I put some dummy rounds into the mag, inserted it into the gun and set about seeing how well it fed. The answer is that it feeds like a monkey's tea party. Only occasionally is the bolt picking up the round and the front of the round is rarely pointing in the right area when it does pick one up to go into the chamber cleanly. Thankfully, as explained somewhere above, I also have another magazine that works well to compare it to. So I expect I'll have the chance to while away an hour or two tweaking the mag in an endeavour to get some sort of reliability. But that'll be for another day I feel now.
 
I'm sure if I had this to do again to another magazine, I'd do it much better. In fact, if I could find one in new condition that didn't cost a King's ransom, I'd take Shamu's suggestion and buy one.  Anyway, hopefully, if someone has a magazine like mine, and they want to try and return it to standard, they'll read this and the knowledge of my experiences will help a little.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Shamu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 24 2016 at 5:25am
If you can find a good welder he can build the holes back up & re grind to make a "new" area there.
L-E mags all  need individual fitting to a rifle so I'd not be too concerned yet. Just get a spring & follower in there & tweak the feed lips.
Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pedro Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 24 2016 at 7:19am
Hi Shamu, thanks for the encouragement. I shall fiddle away with it and try to find a good welder locally.
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