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The final paragraph from Peter Laidler's 'Thesis on the DP Rifle'
Would YOU trust one? There certainly IS a place for a DP rifle in a collection as it forms a place in the lineage of the breed. But in the cupboard or rack or on the wall. NOT on the firing point.
Would YOU fire one? I’ve been an Armourer for a couple of years and while I or your local gunsmith could examine one and give it a bright clean bill of health, would YOU trust it. NO, I wouldn’t either!
Thanks for your replies everyone. I won’t shoot the rifle until I get it checked out by a gunsmith. To be fair I have $220 in it, so I may still come out ok if the smith approves it as a shooter.
Unless I'm missing something here, is this actually a "DP" rifle? Are they not usually (always) stamped on receiver ring/ barrel, etc. Would the plan here not be to have a qualified person replace the bolt and, along with that, give it a routine inspection?
Ridolpho
Ridolpho's hit the nail on the head.
In the UK, fitting a new or replacement bolt would also mean compulsorily submitting the rifle for Proof. If it passed Proof, that would give considerable reassurance about its safety. Can rifles be submitted for Proof in the USA in the same way?
Rob
Ridolpho,
The rifle is not a DP gun, and is not DP marked on the barrel or receiver. The only DP parts are the bolt, bolt head, and there is a faint DP on the small top hand guard. But my questions arose because the bolt is obviously a pressure bearing part. As a matter of fact, the rifle seems to be all matching numbers except the bolt.
Jake: To get back to your original question, I suspect that most here, including myself, would not use the rifle with the DP stamped bolt parts. Personally I would source an excellent second hand bolt (and ancillary parts) and fit it to the body or have it done by someone who knows what they're doing. Asking a gunsmith to determine if it's safe to shoot with a DP bolt is not the answer- at least not if you care to follow the advice of the experts on this forum.
Ridolpho
There are plenty of very good rifles for sale out there; so why take the risk? I suppose it's a question of how lucky you feel when pulling the trigger!
Personally; 18 tons per square inch on the wrong side of a badly fitted bolt is not a risk that I would take!
Get the right bolt fitted by a gunsmith that knows how to correctly fit a enfield bolt. As for DP marked wood its just wood. Dont mess with metal it could kill you.
There's a few reasons I'd not be using that rifle.
You can have no way of knowing, now that the number's been scrubbed off the bolt whether or not that is the original bolt to that rifle. If it is, you've got a DP rifle. If it's not you've got the bolt from a DP rifle that may have been downgraded due to an issue with that bolt.
Before the L59 programme of DP-ing No4 rifles, I'm pretty sure there was no universally applied regime to marking rifles as DP, some rifles might have been stamped "DP" on every visible surface (if the armourer was particularly bored that day, or, more likely just enough parts of the rifle that would have been visible in the rifle rack to let you know at a glance that it was a DP. Even if there was such a "standard", who's to say the rifle is from a source that practised THAT standard? Could have been from a school cadet unit, could have been from a TA unit.
Too many unanswered questions for my liking.
Much as it hurts, I'd be stripping it for parts. Even the wood set should be good for at least 150 bucks + on e-bay.