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The flash suppressor on my recently acquired #5 is pitted badly. I have a new one that I would like to replace it with. How does the suppressor/front sight assembly come off? I have removed the pins holding it on, but it will not budge. Were they soldered on?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
daveboy
Hi Daveyboy, The flash suppressors are pressed on hot, so you need to heat it up to red hot and drive it off, I made up a sleeve [2piece] to go over barrel, a counter bored insert to fit inside suppressor and into barrel muzzle and use a press to push it off.
Stuart.
They are pinned and soldered on. I removed one that had been Bubba'd with my propane torch. Heat it until you see the solder melting out of the joint at the rear end of the flash hider then press off as sam3 did, or tap it off from the rear if you dont have a press. I used a brass drift punch from the rear and had no trouble getting it to move. I had to re-heat it once to finish tapping it off. Good luck!!!
I once had a jc front that had the lug and sight ears and flash cone cut off, ie just a lump of metal. I knocked out the pins and then beat it off with a 2 lb hammer. It eventually did work but I bruised the blueing on the barrel a few times despite taping it and really trying not to. The new one was a slip on, loose, fit, which I ended up securing with loctite, ie I'd slimmed the barrel a bit by forcing the old unit off cold.
I'm writing to say I don't reccomend using the lump hammer as a precision enfield tool. If a propane torch will work as me2 says, then I'd be off to the hardware store and spend the 10 or 20 bucks...
The next question, if you have to heat the thing red hot, then what does that do to the blueing/finish on the barrel, is that now stuffed?
In Malaya we regularly removed them without damage to the eliminator or the barrel. I detailed how to do it properly on the old forum. Maybe someone could resurrect it and reprint it for the benefit of readers on this site.
I don't remember there being soft solder (although there might have been, but I didn't notice or forget.....) but they were just a good, tight press fit, retained by morse-taper pins
While the flash hider is hot you dip it into a tin of old sump oil,blacker the better and it is "oil stained" Doesn`t hurt barrel as it won`t get any hotter than it would during rapid fire.
Does anyone know how to ressurect the old article on how to remove and install the flash hider?
Could it be some were soldered and some weren't. I've seen one come off and there was no solder present. Just curious.
Ok............, ok, ok..... This is how WE did it. There may be other methods but this is the one we used gained from long hard won experience. Remove the two morse taper cross pins. Sometimes they'll tap out quite easily. Others will need a bit of coaxing with a lump hammer and a short stubby drift to start them (then they'll drop out.....). Others will need pressing out on a press. If you really do butcher the pins then you'll need to drill them to start. We had a small drilling template.
Once the pins are out you might find one that will just tap off but be warned................. Any more than a gently tap will damage/bend the bayonet standard and you'll never fit a bayonet if you need to refit the flash eliminator. Or you might damage the foresight protector ears. It's better to press it off right from the word go. But if you want to use heat or just a big hammer, that's up to you........
Put the rifle upright into the press, barrel between two vee blocks just as though you were pressing out a set of wheel bearings. Then, we had a short dumpy piece of hard nickel rod that was an exact fit into the core of the flash eliminator with a centre spigot that would 'centre' into the bore of the barrel. The outer diameter would just sit onto the flat of the muzzle of course. Now operate the press lever and the barrel/action will be pressed out of the flash eliminator with no damage of any sort.
I don’t remember any solder or tinning of any sort although there might have been for a loose one……… but if it were loose, we’d find and fit one that wasn’t!
Refit and align the flash eliminator as you would for fitting a barrel. Ream out the taper pin holes to accept the new taper pins, refit the pins and tap them tight.