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nice rifle, yes the bolt looks like she has had a bit of mistreatment but i would say before it was put together by the looks of that mushroom on the backend of the bolt head. How they got the bolt in would be a bit of either brute force or just not caring! but youve done a good bit of work there to get it out without wrecking it.
Regards
Fergs
You were asking about fitting the recoil pads to the fore-end. If I was you, I wouldn't give the copper recoil pads house room because looking at them through an engineers eye, it's like jacking your car up on sand! The car is sound and the jack is sound but the sand - or in this case - the fore-end is a stable wood but soft! Furthermore.........., I mean......... who ever heard of screwing a short wood screw down, along the grain of a relatively soft and oily wood?
I'd get a good Armourer to cut the area of the draws out as shown several times on this forum and patch in a block of hard wood, such as oak with the grain running the length of the draws (or recoil shoulders as you call them) in the body.
When finished, you have a correct fit of the draws in the fore-end, along the grain of the hardwood patch but better still, across a far greater area.
As taught to me by AQMS 'Jock' Annandale at the Base Ortdnance Depot workshop in Ngaruawahia
...see the snag here Peter with some of your advice , while it is the best advice, is that there is an extreme absence of ANY armorers, not to mention GOOD ones around most places in the US. Some of us are trying and learning, but I for instance have screwed up two perfectly serviceable forends and had to bed with expoxy one other, trying to learn the art of bedding rifles and would not in a million years try to take on a chisel out and recreate the draws type project. Out here it's tough to find a gunsmith who will even fit Enfield barrels - I have to send mine 250 miles to an old guy in the sticks as he's the only one i've found who can do it wihout botching it.
Point taken Newcastle........... All advice given with the best intentions of course. God, I should have taken Brians advice many, many years ago when he said that I could make a killing living and working in the US. I didn't realise that a) there was a shortage of real Armourers, b) that there were plenty of Enfields.
It's easy tolook from the sidelines too. Whenh we were apprentices we made all sorts of horrendous mistakes. Some could be rectified and some couldn't so the job was consigned to the scrap but after 3 years, we could toodle along with the rest of them. Troublingly, they aren't turning out old style Armourers any more
Regarding barrel fitting, just take my detailed instructions and TELL the fitter '......this is how I want you to do it' When I was restoring an old 1969 Mini Cooper, when it came to a job that I couldn't do, such as the upholstery, I took it to several so called 'car trimmers' and TOLD them what I wanted. I also said that if you don't do it like this.........., then don't start the job. When noone wanted to lead-load the patched welded seams (they wanted to use splodge and filler), I learned to lead load.
Sorry, going off at one of my tangents.............. But I get your drift
You could still earn a packet over here and would be most welcome:):):) There are probably more Enfields here in California than there are in the entire UK and we're one of teh least gun friendly states. Funny thing is though that I can always seem to find a better bargain in Nevada when visiting the Father in law, because when you can own a Tommy gun or Bren Gun, who wants an old bolt action rifle.
I would have the headspace checked carefully by a qualified smith. I have seen one of Jovino's rifles right out of the box that had serious headspace problems that bolt heads could not correct.
I understood those many years ago that Jovino had purchesd some unassembled or leftover Lithgow receivers to build these rifles on. I am no longer sure of whether the rifles were built on old rifles, new and unassembled parts or from receivers made up long after WWII. The latter seems unlikely as the rifles were pretty inexpensive, so I am unsure how anyone could make new receivers and a profit at the same time.
BTW, that's a nice looking collection of Enfields.
The bolt head's a bit of an old dog, (been heavily buffed) but the rest is beautiful. Lucky you!