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Competition No4Mk1 |
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DustOff 
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Joined: August 31 2025 Location: Ohio Status: Offline Points: 4 |
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 Topic: Competition No4Mk1Posted: September 03 2025 at 12:26pm |
    Hi, thanks for letting me in. Having a hard time figuring out this rifle. Looking to make it complete by digging for a cleaning kit for the stock, so need to know what it is exactly. Other than 1942     No4 Mk1. ;)
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If you're not dying, we're not flying
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britrifles
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Joined: February 03 2018 Location: Georgia, USA Status: Online Points: 8404 |
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Posted: September 03 2025 at 2:10pm |
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I believe that is a Maltby No. 4 Mk I. Someone has found a means to attach a tunnel foresight to the front sight protector, that is not standard issue.
Hopefully Bear will come along and confirm it’s a Maltby. |
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Honkytonk
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Joined: December 30 2017 Location: Brandon Mb Status: Offline Points: 5190 |
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Posted: September 03 2025 at 2:11pm |
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I have one of those front sights but can't figure out to mount it.
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britrifles
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Joined: February 03 2018 Location: Georgia, USA Status: Online Points: 8404 |
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Posted: September 03 2025 at 2:19pm |
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Looks like it just fits between the “ears” of the sight protector.
Perhaps Mick will come along and enlighten us! By the way, I don’t think these foresights were allowed in UK and Commonwealth Service Rifle (b) competition, they came in at the time of the Target Rifle Class in 1968/69. Again, something that Mick knows well. |
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Shamu
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Posted: September 03 2025 at 3:05pm |
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The front sight block needs to be cut to fit the dovetail IIRC. Plus your rear-sight settings will now need to be recalculated because of the changed LOS form the taller sight blade. The cleaning kit is simply an oil bottle & a pull through cord.The bottles come in brass, Bakelite & some kind of clear plastic. Top right of this little group, the rolls of "Foah Bee Two" were the "patches" you tore one off at the red line, but were not carried in the butt trap.  |
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Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)
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DisasterDog
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Joined: February 21 2025 Location: Brewery Status: Offline Points: 256 |
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Posted: September 03 2025 at 3:05pm |
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1942 Maltby, stylised “M” ahead of the date.
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Canuck
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Posted: September 03 2025 at 5:44pm |
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Maltby made rifle for sure.
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Castles made of sand slip into the sea.....eventually
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Zed
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Posted: September 03 2025 at 10:47pm |
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Ideally with the tunnel fore sight, you would use the dioptre rear sight, such as the Parker TZ4/47.
Obviously you can shoot it using the standard rear sight, but if the rifle has been set up (stock bedded etc), it would be nice to complete it with a suitable rear competition sight. |
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It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice!
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Shamu
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Posted: September 04 2025 at 9:53am |
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Yes THIS!^^^  |
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Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)
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Zed
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Posted: September 04 2025 at 11:49am |
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This is the type of sight that would suit your No4 rifle. this one shown is graduated for 7.62NATO cartridge, but they are available for .303 calibre. 
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It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice!
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Rick
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Joined: April 24 2025 Location: NW MT/SE BC Status: Offline Points: 83 |
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Posted: September 04 2025 at 4:41pm |
To make it complete (not just the cleaning kit), from what can be seen in your pics, that front sight makes me think you'll have to replace the front sight block and that front aperture sight currently mounted in order to go back to the front service sights. As for obtaining the period cleaning kit: once you get it, look at it, fondle it a bit... and then put it away for safe keeping for whoever owns the rifle after you've sold it (or if like me, when it comes time to shuffle off this mortal coil for the long dirt nap). Pull-throughs for cleaning in those days made sense. Still made sense after moved from the No. 4 Mk1 rifles to the FN FAL (maybe even more sense with the FAL, because it has the flash hider to protect the crown). But there's a reason the pams for armourers included instructions on inspecting the muzzle for cord wear to the crown, gauges for the muzzle, etc. Most are probably like me: clean with a conventional cleaning rod and a bore guide insert in the receiver. The Brits are still issuing 4x2s to the troopies - I have rolls of them my brother picked out of assorted Brit fighting vehicles, the much loathed Land-Rovers, etc. while he was still attached to the Brits at BATUS to fix what they broke out at CFB Suffield. So it shouldn't be hard to get together those period correct bits and pieces from EvilBay and elsewhere.
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Shamu
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Posted: September 04 2025 at 5:48pm |
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Landies were much-loathed when did that happen? We loved our Landies!  He's right about the butt-stock cleaning kits though. I have on in each of my Enfields butt traps & I have some 2X4, but I would never use it except in truly dire circumstances.
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Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)
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Rick
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Posted: September 04 2025 at 9:49pm |
Those who wrenched on the Land Rover fleet, i.e. my brother, developed no love whatsoever for them. Randy said the fuel they actually ran on was the hate of the mechanics.
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DustOff
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Posted: September 05 2025 at 5:36am |
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Thanks for all the help on this. This rifle is my friends that he purchased over 40yrs ago. He is Frogman Assassin....cough cough, I mean Sniper, from before they became SEALs. Not exactly sure what his plans are, but I believe it has to do with recent surgeries, age and prepping for that Long Dirt Nap Rick spoke of. He doesnt run the web like us 60+ kids do, lol, so he asked me to find out whatever I can about it. You all have brought to light some interesting questions like why did someone start modding the sights but only swapping the front sight and not the rear. My guess for my friend is he is trying to make it as valuable as possible for his family because they will have NO idea what to do. I am a former AO turned medevac, so from my AO days I kinda get some of it. Being medevac he feels comfortable telling me some stories, and I got to tell you DAAAAANG! That is why I "jokingly" referred to him as an assassin. If he had time he should get help writing a book. I will definitely have to kick around the ideas of either going back to the blade front sight, or swapping in the dioptre rear sight. There is a gun show this weekend and I will go and do some digging for that cleaning kit.
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Shamu
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Posted: September 05 2025 at 2:24pm |
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From the pictures it looks like the rear sight is cranked a fair way up its travel. I assume to make it shoot to POA with the tunnel (called a globe) front. Honkytonk, They come in 2 diameters, if you have the larger one it won't fit without removing the foresight protectors. Some have the dovetail cut for the standard sight block, but some don't. You'd have to check the diameter (just measure "ears" I.D. & sight O.D. the sight has to be less than the ears. You cold check the dovetail be comparing it with a spare front sight blade.,
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Don't shoot till you see the whites of their thighs. (Unofficial motto of the Royal Air Force)
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Strangely Brown
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Posted: September 05 2025 at 4:44pm |
Geoff, you're spot on regarding the fact that these foresight conversions were not allowed during the golden years of SR"b" which I take to be 1946~1968. The NRA (UK) changeover to 7.62mm from .303 at Bisley was a slow affair and the NRA (UK) allowed the use of .303 target rifles to compete alongside 7.62mm rifles from 1968 until 1973 but allowing .303 rifles to use ring inserts for the new style round bull targets which replaced the "tin hat" target. I have a couple of converted No.4 protectors like the one in the image; their use at Bisley was a brief five years and probably slightly longer in club competitions. Some years ago I spent the day with the late John Good who made Brindles sights and was at one time the armourer for the NRA, he referred to these foresight conversions as "privateers". The reason they were called that was because the NRA allowed them but there was no official pattern to adhere to so shooters would get somebody with a bit of engineering know how to fix a foresight tube into a No.4 foresight protector. Some of them are things of beauty...others not so! |
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Mick
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DustOff wrote: