Canadian No4 MkI(T) “Trade Pattern” Sniper w/ Lyman Alaskan

During World War Two, the Canadian military adopted the No4 MkI (T) Enfield as their standard sniper’s rifle, and placed an order for 441 of them from the Long Branch arsenal. However, after receiving just 91, they agreed (under some pressure) to relinquish the retainer of their order to the British military, which claimed a greater need. In order to make up the remaining 350 sniper rifles necessary to equip the newly-expanded Canadian army, they send a delegation down to the US to investigate alternative scope options (as it was the No32 scope production that was the limited factor for sniper rifle production).

The conclusion in the US was that the Weaver 330 and Lyman Alaskan were the two options available in current production that suited military needs (not surprisingly, these were the scopes also identified and used by the US military). The Canadian chose the Lyman Alaskan as the best, and placed an order for 350 of them in March 1944 (the decision was made in December 1943, but it took several months for the bureaucracy to actually place the official order). The scopes were delivered in May 1944, and Small Arms Limited proceeded to assemble 350 rifles using the scopes along with a scope base of their own design, serialized in a batch from 74L0001 through 74L0350 (the scopes were numbers were 4340S through 4690S). They were issued to the Army too late for combat use in World War Two, but they were used in the Korean War.

Some of the rifles were also supplied to Belgium and the Netherlands as military aid in the 1950s. They were used there until the adoption of 7.62mm NATO, at which point they all left service. Many were scrapped, but some were surplussed and survive in collectors’ hand today.