Service Rifle re-bedding

[mrclark303]

Afternoon all,

After revisiting the bedding on my 1903A4 build (A Sniper rebuilt A3) for the third and hopefully final time, I now have an accurate rifle that actually feeds the rounds into the chamber without issue, still I brought it on myself swapping out the repro stock for a NOS Keystone C example.

It occurred to me what a royal pain in the *** the Springfied is in comparison to my No4, with regard to bedding, I followed Peters excellent instructions to the letter with my No4 and it shoots like a dream, no feeding issues here!

The Springfield, well, tweak, tweak and tweak some more, to get the rifle to bed and feed correctly, such a fussy rifle.

I have to say the Lee Enfield design, (particularly the No4) just beats the Springfield in every important respect, the only thing better on a Springfield is the ease of field stripping.

Information

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[bigduke6]

John, I never had any issue with my old M1903's, as for feeding I wouldn't of thought it was too much to do with the timber as the mag follower spring would allow for some discrepency.......but its been a long time since I had one in bits, but they are in my opinion an excellent rifle, if I lived in the US, I'd be a collector of them for sure, then again if I lived in the US I'd be collector of everything.........

But as you say the Enfield beats it and every other rifle hands down........

[mrclark303]

Hi Geoff,

The issue with the Keystone stock was incorrect inletting (or just factory standard that needs hand adjustment more like) It wouldn't allow the trigger guard to fully close with the action body. It took a few attempts to carefully re-bed the rifle in the woodwork, while ensuring I didn't remove too much wood and prevent correct contact/torque on the front screw.

Not quite right and it will shoot well, but not feed reliably.

I found it with my novice skills to be a very fine line indeed getting it set to that sweet point were she shoots well and feeds correctly.

My Maltbys new clothes were an easy fit in comparison to this fussy old Yank!

But new skills learnt and that's half the fun of it for me mate.

Still great fun to shoot though!

[mike16]

how abou a link to that 4 bedding of peters?

[mrclark303]

https://www.milsurps.com/content.php...ter-Laidler%29

There we go Mike, plenty of excellent info to digest here thanks to Peter...

[mike16]

Thank you , very interesting, if only I had enough time to follow each additional link.