I acquired what initially appeared to be a well-used 1944 Lee-Enfield No.4 Mk1 made by Savage at an estate sale in October, 2014 that's turned out to be a great shooter. It has strong, crisp rifling and the action is fairly tight. I've cycled several hundred rounds through it without any major problems occurring other than a broken extractor spring. It's one of my favorite battle rifles.
Since I never could quite solve the iron ladder sight, I installed a bolt-on Addley Precision scope mount and a Bushnell scope and the old boy shoots tight groups at 100 yards. Shooting is always more fun when your rifle is zeroed.
I'm fairly sure the No.4 saw service during WW2 because of the stock's general dinged and dented condition. I wouldn't want it any other way. However, it had BLR (Beyond Local Repair) stenciled in big letters on the stock. I had no idea of what BLR meant when I bought it. After determining it's meaning and before shooting it, I had several gunsmiths look at it to determine if it was safe to shoot. No problems were found so the BLR designation remains a mystery.
Not being totally satisfied with what the smiths found, I decided to buy a .303 head space field gauge and use it to confirm their measurement and to occasionally check out the bolt/receiver myself for wear. The bolt closed 100% easily on my .070" head space field gauge which didn't make sense. I later found out that there are US civilian SAAMI head space specs (.070") and British military head space specs (.074"). Trying again with the correct .074" spaced head space field gauge only allowed the bolt to close to around 80% which confirmed the smiths' generally positive assessment of the rifle.
Had the No. 4 out to the range the other day along with a newly acquired and minty M1917 Winchester that I was shooting for the first time. Both rifles were shooting nice groups so it was a great day!
Merc