Home Made Tooling for your Lee Enfield.

[Rastis]

G'Day,
Here is my homemade Go and No Go Gauges, and firing pin removal tool. The gauges are unfired military 303 cases with steel discs ground to the correct thickness screwed to them, and the firing pin tool is just a socket headed bolt ground to the correct shape.

Rastis.

[boltguns]

Pictures of original armorer's tools: Armourers Tools | All About Enfields

[WarPig1976]

I used a round curtain rod and cut the nubs with the dremel for firing pin removal tool. Bit flimsy but it worked still have it too...

[tbonesmith]

Hi Guys,

Lately I have rebarrelled a few No4 7.62 conversions with unused but old target rifle barrels. They were made for the O-marks and there are some floating around rifle clubs for cheap, so they make a good blank for a No4. The threads are miles off and the chamber length doesn't work, so it's basically a full new chamber and thread proposition....Anyway, I have not been hitting the correct CHS off measurements, and found the reason to be that where I was measuring off the receiver face to the bolt face was a bit burred or dinged once and another time the receiver face had a little recess from the old barrel crushing it a bit.

So in order to be able to in future accurately face the receivers before measuring for the tennnon length and headspace/chamber length I made this little fella. It is one of the fixtures outlined in John Hinnant's great book: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Precision Rifle Barrel Fitting. For what it's worth, the mandrel through the body is a very close fit, it runs true and locks up nicely with the threads, I think it will do the trick nicely.

I will use it pretty soon and let you know how it goes.

[bigduke6]

It is one of the fixtures outlined in John Hinnant's great book: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Precision Rifle Barrel Fitting

Also an owner of the excellent book by John Hinnant, was looking for the best words to describe it, but after rebuilding a V8 Caterpillar over the last 3 days (overtime) and fighting to keep the eyes open found this review instead,

Book Review: The Complete Illustrated Guide to Precision Rifle Barrel Fitting by John L. Hinnant - Projects In Metal, LLC

[Brit plumber]

That's a nice looking lathe set up.

[tbonesmith]

Hi Guys,

here is a tool I have been meaning to build for ages.

When you are chambering a barrel, one very critical measurement is that from the shoulder to the base of the GO Gauge. This distance is calculated by measuring the breech face of the receiver to the boltface.

At the best of times it is difficult to measure because the shoulder is small, when the barrel is in the lathe it is even more awkward. I have recently been clamping a V block and using a depth mic. off that, but the length of the v block is something stupid like 2.372" which is just too hard, and it's big and heavy and plain painful.

So this little number I have turned and stoned to a length of 1.0000" with an internal diameter of 1.1". It's not hardened, but I won't abuse it and I think it will last fine. I have some blanks waiting to be fitted to this can earn its keep right away!

[mil-surp60]

impressive work my friend ,seems you are the MAN on tooling for these great old rifles , thanx i will be building a few of those tools.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Remember that SMLEs (No1 Mk 111 etc) breech up on the INNER breech ring, as do the opposition (Mauser 98s). There is SUPPOSED to be a minute gap between the front of the receiver and the back of the Knox Form.

No4 and 5 rifles breech up on the FRONT of the receiver.

"Truing" the front of a SMLE receiver before fitting a "new" ORIGINAL barrel will not do much for improving alignment. HOWEVER, on a No4 you will probably blow out the alignment / "crush" allowance if you take more than a few microns off the front face.

If you are starting with a new, blank barrel, do whatever works for you.

I suspect that the use if the inner ring as "datum" allowed the entire receiver to be mounted on a precision mandrel whilst many other external operations were carried out. It would also allow the "fine tuning" of the indexing of the threads BEFORE too much metal was removed from the rest of the forging.

A lot of dimensions on a SMLE receiver use the bolt centre-line and the inner breech ring as primary datum references.

And don't forget: the thread on a SMLE barrel is an "Enfield Special". The pitch is the same as a No4, (14 TPI) but the included flank angle is 49deg 40min,with radiused roots and crests like BA threads: definitely NOT Whitworth.

The breech thread in No4 and 5 rifles is 55deg and pretty much Whitworth form.

[Bluenoser]

Hi,
I am new to the group, but have been playing around with Lee Enfields for about 40 years. This thread couldn’t be more timely for me since I am currently setting up to do barrel swaps on a couple of LEC1s . This will be my first bbl removal and I am doing a practice run on an SMLE barreled action. I am having difficulty with bbl slippage. My vise consists of two pieces of 2” x 3” solid steel held together by four ½” NF bolts. Alternatively, it will accept two 7/8” NF bolts but I think the ½” bolts should provide the required pressure.

My current blocks are just long enough to cover the knoxform. They consist of hard maple set in sections of 3” channel iron. They are an exact match to the bbl profile and-even with powdered rosin - it’s a no go.

I have an idea for new blocks and would appreciate feedback. I am thinking of using 3” long sections of 3” channel iron with sheet steel end caps brazed on. Alternatively, the end caps could be sheet brass soldered on. The 3” length matches the width or depth of my vise. Each end cap would be cut out to match slightly less than ½ the bbl profile. What I would end up with would be molds that would conform to the first 3" of the bbl and knoxform. I would then fill each mold with a chopped fiberglass slurry and make casts of the bbl. If the end caps are steel, I would slightly relieve the openings once the glass has set up so as not to score the bbl if it slips. In use, I think I would still use rosin.

Once I know I have workable blocks I would make blocks to fit the LEC1s, which have a different knoxform profile.

And now the question: Should it work or am I drinking my bath water? Has anyone tried it?