Making A Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear

I had a customer bring a 1942 No.4MKI .303 Lee Enfield that was in pretty rough shape. The rifle had a FTR by Fazakerley in 1948 and appears at some point went to India judging by the Large Wood Screw through the foreend. The customer had purchase the rifle on Armslist and was looking for just a basic shooter not spending a lot of money. He said he checked the headspace with a set of coin-type headspace gauges and it closed on a "field" gauge. I am taking it to mean SAAMI specifics instead of the Military Commonwealth Standard for .303. I checked the headspacing myself and found the headspace to be about .098. I believe that during WWII .084 was acceptable. I took the rifle to the range and fired 5 light loads through the rifle and there appears to be no separation of the case and the rifle was extremely accurate. I fired only one full power cartridge and there was a notable separation line in the case. The rifle also had a tendency to pop open the bolt during firing on two occasions, an event which I had never seen before on a Lee Enfield. I stop firing as the rifle was too dangerous to fire in its current condition. Does anyone have any suggestions on getting this Sow's Ear into a Silk Purse? I would tell the customer he made a bad purchase and to make a wall hanger out it but the barrel is like in new condition and is clearly a replacement barrel. Thanks in advance.

PS-- Before you start to Monday quarterback me. The test firing was from a test fixture that I have.

Check headspace first. Changing bolt head to new and tight on headspace, new spring may be a quick resolution to the bolt jumping. If it continues to jump then there is excessive wear on the rail or the bolt body. Ron (Canada)

The obvious question is, does the bolt match and appear to be original?

If the bolt handle is literally popping up to the fully unlocked position that would be a remarkable occurrence.

If the bolt is original or likely to be, I would check the lugs and whether the four surfaces appear to be bearing evenly/equally.

A rifle that has been through FTR and has a barrel that good (presumably the one fitted at FTR?) should still be in very good shape if it has not been messed around with or lost its original bolt.

The bolt and gun matches. The barrel is pretty good shape, there is a lot of wear on the bolt lugs and several are pained over. It looks like that is at least a minmum of a new bolt and higher bolt head # to get the rifle in spec if that is the problem and again the bolt body (receiver) maybe probably worn out from too much use and wars.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fjruple

The bolt and gun matches. The barrel is pretty good shape, there is a lot of wear on the bolt lugs and several are pained over. .

---

In which case I'd suggest that the body is "probably beyond safe use".
It would seem that the bolt has hammered thru' the hardening and is now wearing away into the soft metal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by fjruple

The bolt and gun matches. The barrel is pretty good shape, there is a lot of wear on the bolt lugs and several are peened over. It looks like that is at least a minimum of a new bolt and higher bolt head # to get the rifle in spec if that is the problem and again the bolt body (receiver) maybe probably worn out from too much use and wars.

---

What exactly do you mean by "peened over" in that context?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alan de Enfield

In which case I'd suggest that the body is "probably beyond safe use".
It would seem that the bolt has hammered thru' the hardening and is now wearing away into the soft metal.

---

With respect it is impossible to "hammer through" the hardening unless it flakes off. Wearing through from friction possibly I suppose.

Though from the comments about this by Peter Laidler that you(?) recently reposted, one has to wonder if some bodies actually got any substantive hardening at all - or at least whether they got it in the right places.

Bolts presumably were much easier to harden as the lugs were much more accessible, and it might be that the bodies tended to wear more than the bolts as a result where the body hardening was not as thorough, or not present at all.

I don't know what objective criteria, other than the master gauge bolt, could be used to assess whether it was a rifle body or its bolt that was actually wearing or if one was wearing more than the other.

One also has to wonder what role compression of metal under the hardened surfaces (if any) would play in the development of excessive headspace - there "hammering" would be part of the process.

I am reminded of the "setting back" of the bolt process reputedly involved in proof-firing; presumably a process that involved a certain permanent compression.

All in all, there seem to be quite a few mysteries about this, and time has probably by now eliminated all the eye-witnesses who could have explained them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Surpmil

Though from the comments about this by Peter Laidler that you(?) recently reposted, one has to wonder if some bodies actually got any substantive hardening at all - or at least whether they got it in the right places.

---

Peter has, in a number of posts, stated :

"The rifle body is induction hardened at these points (the locking lugs) to a depth of .004 - .006" but we have found it deeper".

"Another problem they encountered was that with the speed of wartime production, the induction hardening of the bodies was at best, mediocre, and at worst, sometimes virtually non existant. The hardening sometimes had no depth and it was tested at Base Workshops by the old IZOD impact test method. Apparently, all manufacturers were as bad or good as each other including Savage and LB (I bet that has shocked a few of you who were probably lead to believe that some makers were 'better' than others......)"

"When it was impossible to get CHS, using the old bolt and boltheads then a new bolt, you'd use the gauge bolt do the final check. If this failed then the rifle was scrapped as this calibrated bolt had deemed that the body locking lugs were worn through".

"The gauge bolt will also tell the Armourers whether the body locking lugs are worn unevenly or whether one side of the rifle bolt has run through the hardened shoulder. The rifle will still function perfectly and is suitable for training but NOT for service use"

Yes, that is the quote I was thinking of, thanks.

Presumably the bodies were sawn open so that the hardened faces could actually be tested?

And were these new bodies or condemed? If they were condemned one assumes they weren't condemned for excessive headspace?

I'm going to have to see if I can get access to an ultrasonic hardness tester.

If you are confident of your measurements, and it's 0.024" over the British Field maximum head space of 0.074" then I think you'd be wasting you time with that receiver. Unless of course that you can prove that someone has removed 0.025" of material from the bolt face!
Safety first!

I would like to thank everyone for their response. I condemned the rifle and gave it back to the customer with a note that it must not be shot and that his money would be better spent on a shootable No.4 MKI instead of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.