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Ian Skennerton asked me to look at some of my early No.1 MkVI and early No.4 rifles. This one surfaced, a 1931 Enfield with a 0.395 inch diameter counter bore, 0.585 inches deep. As the gun is almost new, I suspect it was used as a WWII test bed to determine accuracy following counterboring done to refurbish damaged muzzles.
Photos could be better but my photo studio is mid point in being totally revised.
I would disagree with that Paul. Trials such as this had already been undertaken during the first war and were found to be of no value for many reasons*. So why repeat the process again? I think a damaged or worn muzzle, counterbored by an enthusiastic amateur later
*I'll mention some later if anyone really is interested
Given the source where I got it, I believe it to be from the Greener Factory Collection. I have been trying for years to obtain a copy of the Navy Arms Catalog of their purchase of the Greener Collection to confirm this. I have another rifle of the same period/condition/source that has a 3/8 inch wide bevel cut on the left side of the receiver from the charger bridge to the rear sight pivot lug. I know the two former owners and they were not machinist tinkerers who would do something like this.
As far as information from the first war or any other source, the first principle of any large organization is that they don't believe any report that is not current. Many times at Ford I heard, retest it they might not have done it right or we have better what evers now.
That might be so Paul but trials into the repair of and feasibility of any such repairs to crown damage are well documented, in pages and pages of incoherent blurb within the Ordnance Board papers. Specifically and coincidentally in view of Colonels recent thread in relation to cordwear and, strangely enough, slight shrapnel and inaccuracy due to splinter fragments. And counterboreing was a non starter. Countersinking/crowning was an improvement but with dire reservations that also made it a virtual non starter too.
One part of the report that I am only relating from idle memory now, was that even countersinkinmg/cutting/re-crowning properly was a very accurate undertaking and if this had to be done at a rear line/ordnance echelon workshop where there was already re-barrelling facilities then why bother recrowning when they were already geared up to totally refurbish?
I have seen this counter-boring somewhere else and I seem to recall the rifle concerned had come from some dire colonial outpost. I have also seen it on a couple of Soviet-built SKS carbines that had been "traded-in" by some interesting Middle-Eastern nation or other.
As Peter says, a REAL armourer in a REAL workshop, be it field or, much more likely, base, would simply swap out the barrel and then do the proper follow-up on bedding and sighting, etc., etc., or simply flick it further up the food-chain for a total rebuild; (FTR) and get the "Q" store to do a "one for one"..
Given what a drama it would be to set the thing up in a lathe and do the counterbore properly, it would actually be quicker to change the barrel. (Assuming you are working in a system that has such parts on call).
If the rifle came from the UK there is another factor that may be relevant here, & that is UK proof law. If I understand things correctly a rifle with a bulged barrel will not pass UK domestic proof & is therefore unsaleable. I have seen a number of weapons that had muzzle bulges that were counter bored by RFD's simply to lose the bulge & so get them through proof. What I am saying is could this counter boring have been done by the civvy trade for purely pecuniary reasons, rather than by the military?
ATB.
IIRC both the trials No4(T)s that I owned had 'ringed' barrels near the muzzle. Perhaps they were disposed of for that reason, though neither had staked pads for post-war UK service.