No4 mk2 target rifle

[enscien]

Attachment 61355

Attached is a sketch of the 'Plate, Seating' CR1473.
Material is ordinary mild steel.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

That sound you can hear is the massed band of the "Routers and Wood-ruff Cutters", smartening-up a herd of No.4s.

Has any "enthusiast" tried this caper on an errant No.5?

[Peter Laidler]

While it is well known NOW that the PLATE seating (we used to call it the PLATE, reinforce - or reinforcing...) is mild steel, this was one feature that was 'blue lined' (or censored in civillian parlance) when the papers for the book were submitted for prior approval before publication! Quite why is a matter of speculation but even if it were some special quality rare earth metal, it's obvious that mild steel would suffice for the purpose.

[ssj]

Hi,

Actually I have the crushed wood problem on my Pattern 1914 target rifle. After I bought it I found it was missing the spacer for the main front screw. I think on purpose to increase the "grip" on the front, result is a badly crushed area. I was wondering how best to repair it. I have made a new spacer and was pondering the next step, I dont have any steel but I do have some brass strip.

For the target No4 it has been "pillar bedded" with a thick walled aluminium spacer epoxy'd in, trouble is it means I have to now work to this point as its so fixed. Since this gun is so much trouble Im wondering if it was a bad idea. I might retro-fit it back to this config as well.

---------- Post added at 10:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:07 AM ----------

That sound you can hear is the massed band of the "Routers and Wood-ruff Cutters", smartening-up a herd of No.4s.

Has any "enthusiast" tried this caper on an errant No.5?

Isnt the problem more likely to be the floating barrel?

[Bruce_in_Oz]

"Isn't the problem more likely to be the floating barrel?"

If the fore-end is not firmly attached in the area of the front screw and Knox form, it will be the woodwork doing the "floating".

Even when correctly assembled and tensioned, it will resemble an asymmetrical tuning fork; one tine ringing like a bell, the other, sort of "soggy". This is not a recipe for consistent accuracy. Don't forget the added influence of the top handguard in this situation.

If the barrel is "fully-floating" and the fore-end "loose" (not tensioned sufficiently), all bets are off.

Could Captain Laidler please step in here with the envelope containing the "correct answer" from the usual impeccable sources?

[Frederick303]

In my experience the Enfield accuracy was designed around the wood. The degree to which the wood "damps" the barrel depends on both the front barrel pressure and the rear barrels reinforce pressure. I once tried floating the rear barrel reinforce on a No 4, while maintaining the correct front barrel pressure. The idea was to then adjust the front guard screw height to (different sizes of the guard screw collar) play around with the front barrel damping pressure between 3 and 10 pounds of lift without having to mess around with adjusting the wood underneath the barrel reinforce just ahead of the action body.

In any case that was a complete flop. The accuracy was wild with a lot of flyers. Put back in the barrel reinforce with a shim of maple wood, much like you see on Canadian regulated rifles and….….accuracy comes right back, no more flyers.

The problem I see with doing the old aluminum block/pillar bed is that you might lose whatever damping is going on with the wood to action/barrel reinforce fit. No idea if I am correct on that, but I notice on the old No 4 rifles regulated to shoot 303 at 500 to 900 yards you do not see epoxy, except under the center bed and often there is a thin veneer of wood between the bed surface and the expoxy.

Correction: The only place I have seen epoxy in the bedding on Enfield action bodies was in the rear action draws and the surface between the rear of the wood and the socket for the buttstock. I have seen some old workhorses with what appears to be Bisonite surface bedding, which seems to have been applied for tightening up warn draws without changing any other fit relationships.

Actually I have found that pretty much if you copy what was done by Fultons or the standard bedding you will get the best results. I still do like center bedding for a match rifle, if you are going to use a sling.

[ssj]

Epoxy would have been expensive say 50 years ago? now its very cheap. I certainly have played with various pressures on the re-inforce and the fixed pillar bedding makes this vary hard to do. "In any case that was a complete flop" thanks for the tip. I am currently adding alloy foil 1thou thick to it to increase pressure slightly, I might try some more as its shooting like a dog at the moment.

"Actually I have found that pretty much if you copy what was done by Fultons or the standard bedding you will get the best results." Fultons/parker Hale/AJP pretty much all seem very simliar on no4s and this is what I have done. "I still do like center bedding for a match rifle, if you are going to use a sling. " I am but its very shooting badly.

[Frederick303]

The first service instructions on using epoxy in US match tuned M1 rifles date from around 1955~1956. The AMU service note I have on that topic dates from 1956 (at least from memory). Very little epoxy is used, a pound of Bisonite would last for a great many rifles. Given that the No 4 rifle was still in used as a service rifle from 1955 until 1968, and in New Zealand I think the transition to match rifle occurred in the 1970 season, there was ample time for good techniques to be worked out if epoxy was the way to go. The fact that I have seen rifles with wooden inserts that seems to be epoxied in with early 1950s barrel dates (based on the Birmingham proofs) tells me they knew about it but did not use it.
The way I have regulated the two pressures, which might not be right with MK VII ammunition, but seems to work with regular modern single base tubular powders like Varget, IMR4895 and IMR 4064, is to adjust the action body bedding and draws for a good fit with center bedding. Basically the action is sitting in the wood centered and true, the rear draws and butt socket are fits are correct. If using a new stock this means careful scraping with metal scrapers and use of spray black to see how good the fit is. To get a good fit on the curved surfaces I use sandpaper under the barrel and reinforce, with the action body/barrel assembly supported in the wood by means of a front ring to ensure the sanding does not go off center. If you over sand it is no issue, just epoxy in a thin veneer of wood, I use maple/walnut sheets I get from the hobby shop. On curved surfaces you will have to steam the wood to get the wood to take the right shape, but your wife’s steam iron with a bowl of warm water to dampen the wood works just fine. I use a wood glue for the veneer that is supposed to be water proof once set up. The shim wood is the thinnest I can find, something under 1/16th of an inch, I do not recall at the moment. I would not use such thin veneers to get the draws right, I seem to recall there is a good tutorial on this sight on getting that right.

You want to be sure that the barrel reinforce is only bearing along a 1/3 portion of the bottom of the reinforce, with the force symmetric with the barrel. The reason for this will be apparent. Bearings surface if from the handguard ring up to around 1/8 inch from where the barrel assumes a linear straight line to the muzzle. Basically you want the reinforce in contact only on the curved surface of the barrel.

If using a front barrel seat I would start with between 8.5 and 10.5 pounds of lift force needed to bring the barrel off of the seat when the action body is fully seated into the wood. This is measured by using a fish scale on the barrel right in front of the front stock ferrule, with the rifle sitting straight up, in the position you would have it if shooting at a bench.

Once you have those fits more or less correct, (which may take several nights of messing around) then apply some blue locktite to the front trigger guard screw. Also apply some graphite with a wee bit of thick grease under where the barrel meets bed and under the barrel reinforce but nowhere else. A very thin smear is all you need, not globs of it, just enough so the barrel can slide easily under recoil. Without using the stock spacer screw it is until it is a good fit, that is snug but no more. Count the turns from start until it is snug. Now go out to the range and fire ten shot groups at the range you want the rifle to shoot at. Look for good round groups. Tighten up the front guard screw a wee bit, say 1/3 of a turn. Check again.

Now here is where it gets a bit dicey. As you increase the front guard screw, you are increasing the reinforce pressure but after a wee bit of crush you will also be reducing the front barrel pressure. I have no idea what the correct reinforce pressure is, but on the few front bed rifles I set up the front lift pressure went from something around 10 Lbs. down to something around 6.5~8 Lbs. If the pressure on the front barrel seat is below around 4.5~5 Lbs, then the pressure on the front reinforce is too high, at least in my experience and you will get wild shots or two grouping, for reasons I know not. Then you have to reduce the barrel reinforce seat , to get the front pressure back.

Now one of the reasons I like the center bed is that if you run into this problem, it is a lot easier to simply shim up the center bed with a thin veneer and have another shot at it. The center bed pressures seem to be much less important, as long as they are something over 10 Lbs.

In any case once you have a fit that shoot s decent groups, count out the number of turns on the front guard screw. Disassemble and then cut down a collar with the action free of the wood so that when tight it gives you the correct number of turns before the collar stops. Then reassemble the rifle with the collar and you are mostly done. If you go to this trouble I would be sure to install the action metal collar, it will help keep the bedding constant over a number of seasons.

By the by, after a few thousand rounds you may have to go back and touch up the fit of the rear draws, they seem to loosen up after ~2,000 rounds. I cannot say with any more precision than that as I have only had one rifle with that many rounds through it. To fit that rifle I steamed out the slightly crushed wood and then treated it with a minwax wood hardener/epoxy made to be used on slightly rotted wood. That restored the fits, in fact it took a bit of tamping to get the stock back on the action.

Depending on the fit you may have to adjust the handguard to ensure that they are snug but not too tight, as the barrel may sit a wee bit lower in the stock when you are all the way done. You do not want to have the rear handguard have to be inserted and used like a crow bar to make it fit, that will mess up the fit of the action body to the wood. It should go in easy and have minimal play.

Last thing to do is once the rest of the fits are correct is to adjust the trigger. If a MK I or MK I* action.

Now if you got this far you are wondering what sort of results one gets. With US loads shooting with 150 grain to 175 grain US bullets (Hornaday, Sierra) and power charges of around 40 to 41 grains of Varget /IMR4064, the accuracy of the above will be about 10 shot groups on the order of 1.5~1.8 MOA. I have never fired a perfect 100 with the No 4 on the US decimal target, much less a perfect 200. I have fired personnel best of 188 with the best single 10 shot string being a 96. In all of those strings there have been shots called out, as well as shots that were not where expected. In comparison on a well-tuned M16A2 with the full match set up I used to be able to do a 196~198 pretty easy, and those rifles were known to group with good ammo something less than 1 MOA. I have not fired one in 5 years so I have no idea how these old nearly 51 year old eyes would do today.

If it would help and I can figure it out, I will try to get the wife to take some photos of a disassembled rifle. I have one called “rex the wonder gun” that has been subjected to experimentation for something like 10 years, two stock sets and still shots pretty decent, despite a well-worn bore at this point.

[ssj]

Thanks. My main gun (an ex-AJP) does strange things, it groups extremely well for a handful of shots then jumps up 6MOA then can group for the same number of shots again and then progressively shoots unpredictably vertically. It is centre bedded and it maybe the re-inforce pressure is actually to heavy rather then the too light I thought. My other gun (an ex-parkerhale no4) I am setting back to as-issued. this post will help me understand what is going on, currently the front loading is 3lbs which I intended to brass shim heavier to see the effect. For centre bedded the info I have says use cork above the bed to clamp it, but from what I read here this isnt your setup?

If you can do pics that would be great.

[Frederick303]

If the bedding is set up right, and the draws are still tight, I would expect the issues might be something else. Generally if a rifle two groups or has some kind of jump in its group there is some kind of stiction fit that is moving under recoil, setting up different forces on the barreled action shot to shot. That is why the graphite is used under the barrel reinforce and the front barrel seat, to ensure they can move under recoil and return to their original placement. It could also be a case of bad fouling.

You might have a warped stock. If the barrel is not more or less centered in the stock channel at the very front band, then the stock might have warped and changed the bedding pressures. If that is not the case, before I did any messing with a factory bedding job I would check the following:

1) Fouling: Sometimes old barrels have a lot of fouling that is really difficult to get out, both carbon and copper. You might need to clean out both, which means using a copper cleaner and then a carbon cleaner. A clean bore is a happy bore. If there is something rough in the bore or the throat, which might be the issue as well. if you can polish that down with JB bore cleaner or another similar substance that might resolve the issue.

2) Once cleaned out check the crown, if worn it might lead to the wild shots.

3) When reassembling the rifle use some graphite on the barrel seat and the barrel reinforce.

4) Give the rifle some time to settle in the stock. When I used to take the M1 and M14 rifles out of their stocks, once reassembled you had to give the rifle a good 20 rounds to make sure it settled down.

5) Check the handguard for fit, if the rear one is wedged or a stiction fit, that could account for wildly varying vertical stringing.

6) One last issue, if the stock has dried out it may no longer fit correctly. The old method I would use with glue and the epoxies available here in the US of A is to let the stock absorb linseed oil, but I am not sure if that finish is compatible with what AJP did. Frankly given the very historic aspect of the rifle, I would be very hesitant to make any major change to the bedding.