Recovery Job

A friend dropped over a few days ago and he was clutching a hessian bag of "stuff".

Most of it seemed to be P-14 parts, including a "sporterized" body and bolt. Body ears professionally machined of and the bolt-handle "straightened" and slightly swept back. Probably from the "golden" years of the mid / late 1950s. Nice blueing job.or was once.No barrel or stock.

He told me that there was other M-17 / P-14 stuff at his place, including a HEAVY "target" barrel for a P-14, with a very good bore, not the usual .3.3 sewer pipe look.

Next question was a bit of a surprise: How hard to convert to 7.62 x 54R?
, possibly using a modified Mosin Nagant magazine assembly?

I reckon he had been mulling this over for a while. So, here I am, tossing another log on the fire.

54r is slightly wider and slightly shorter than 303. The 54r shoulder is closer to the rim. It can feed from an SMLE magazine, and in theory it should feed from a P-14 magazine, but on a P-14, the feed lips and interrupter are cut into the receiver, so they need more effort to modify them for reliability. A concern could be in the bolt head depending on the differences in rim size. 7.62x51 makes more sense to me because of its similarity to 30-06, and conversions are more documented.

So he's got a hammer-forger Enfield 7.62mm barrel and wants to set it back for 7. 62x54? Is the typical 1 in 12 twist going to work for that round that seems to prefer 1:9.5 ?

No, the barrel is a "heavy" profile "commercial" barrel off probably another "decommissioned" P-14 target rifle. I am just the "mate" who fielded the inquiry accompanied by a "bag-o'-bits". I THINK the bolt is a 1* with the extended left "guide" on the bolt face. If so, then machining out the few-thou difference in rim diameter will be feasible and probably required. If it is a Mk 1*, this adds the fun of machining the "clearances" for that longer lug, in the rear face of the barrel; what joy, for someone.

The whole "feed angles" and control surfaces caper is what prompted me to think about using a "spare" Mosin Nagant magazine / trigger-guard with a bit of creativity to blacksmith the Mosin's feed-control gizmos.

If that .303 "heavy" barrel scrubs up OK then the easy? plan would be to go with that. If is is too far gone, "7.62 x 53R" may be the go, using a reasonably fresh 7.62 NATO target rifle barrel set back,profiled, fitted and chambered appropriately. The REALLY "easy" way out is to do it in .30-303 running quality .308" bullets out of .303 brass, fed from a standard P-14 magazine.

Given the transfer of thousands of P-14s to a couple of Baltic states post WW1, does anyone know if the locals ever got creative with these rifles as the .303 ammo dried up? Or were they still "as issued" when Stalin, et al "reincorporated" them into the Soviet Union?

This is not an "overnight" job, obviously.

When one fits a Mosin barrel to a P-14 Enfield there is only a shoulder of about 0.028 available. The shoulder on P-14 and 1917 barrels is about 0.100. There may not be an adequate shoulder to allow the use of the Mosin barrel. Barrels for use on the P-14/1917 Enfields usually are ordered with an larger barrel shank at the breech end.

Bill

I suspect there are good reasons why changing to 7,62X54 in a P14 isn't well known. Rechambering doesn't seem to be an issue, getting it to feed through the magazine and adapting the bolt are. Keeping it 303 seems to be the solution.