regarding No 4 and No 5 rifle bedding

Hi, I've just bought a nice no5, and did a couple of small repairs to the woodwork(the forend). The barrel was sitting to the left hand side of the barrel channel, so i relieved the wood of the forend at the right hand side where it contacts the butt socket/collar. I appear to still have good contact on the wooden recoil shoiulders(I forget what they're called), but I've got a small gap between the collar and the forend. I could take it up with epoxy filler, but I want to keep this one original. Anyone know if this gap will adversely effect its performance, and if so the correct way to rectify it? NB. The gap is only a fraction of a millimeter, 1/4 or so.
Thanks

The gap between the recoil lugs and the butt socket should be completely filled by the wood of the draws. A gap may lead to movement of the forend during recoil, and subsequent accelerated wear of other bedding points - particularly the wood under the recoil lugs.

Filling the gap with adhesive tape or resin should give a firm forend fitment, and won't unduly alter the rifle. In service, a new forend would have been fitted anyway.

Adhesive tape or resin.....................!!!!! Shame on you Thunderbox! Armourers would chisel the old wood out, make good, then insert a patch of hardwood. Recut the draws and refit the fore-end. Young Armourers weren't allowed to fit new part unless one of the older Armourers (or the in-inspector) sanctioned it. And unless fore-ends were literally oil soaked or badly damaged as to be beyond patching, they were patched.

We called it pride in the job...........

I think that an article about patching the 'draws' has been published already T-bone. If not, just say so and I'll go through it for all to see

i've searched for patching drawers and got no results, if you could run through the process I'd appreciate it.

Leave it with me and I'll find an old No5 fore-end to work on next week.

I want you to think of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, its leaning because the foundation sank on one side and is crooked causing the tower to lean. The reason your barrel is off center is because your fore stock is “leaning” BUT your foundation is level.

The very rear of the fore stock where it contacts the receiver ring controls the centering of the barrel in the fore stock barrel channel. The forward section of the draws pushes the fore stock to the rear into contact with the receiver ring, if the rear of the fore stock is not contacting the receiver ring evenly the barrel will be of center.

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Use a feeler gauge to check for contact on the left and right sides.

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Repairs made to the forward area of the draws by an Armourer.

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Read the bedding instructions in the two manuals below.

1991 No.4 (All Marks) .303 Rifle Manuals (Complete Set) - Military Surplus Collectors Forums

The Canadian Marksman (Bedding the 7.62mm No.4 Rifle) - 1965 - Military Surplus Collectors Forums

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Another photo of a arsenal repaired fore stock.

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Originally Posted by tbonesmith

Hi, I've just bought a nice no5, and did a couple of small repairs to the woodwork(the forend). The barrel was sitting to the left hand side of the barrel channel, so i relieved the wood of the forend at the right hand side where it contacts the butt socket/collar. I appear to still have good contact on the wooden recoil shoiulders(I forget what they're called), but I've got a small gap between the collar and the forend. I could take it up with epoxy filler, but I want to keep this one original. Anyone know if this gap will adversely effect its performance, and if so the correct way to rectify it? NB. The gap is only a fraction of a millimeter, 1/4 or so.
Thanks

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A gap that tiny would be best served by using accraglass bedding, if the wood is not oil soaked so badly as to require such radical measures as cutting away chunks and fitting pieces to replace the damaged wood.
A thin coat of accraglass would be much less noticable than attempting to duplicate the armorers repairs outlined, and probably more successful.
Afterall this sort of inletting work was not taken lightly.
A much worse case would be better served by the inletting of blocks suggested.

Also have you checked the trigger guard for signs of twisting or bending?
One No.1 fore end I fitted would look fine till the guard screws were tightened then it would shift to one side. I finally took a good look at the rails of the trigger guard and saw they were twisted. When tightened the twist put the whole thing out of whack. Once straightened everthing lined up perfectly.


Excessive oil in wood can be leeched away by heating the wood, and by soaking in a trisodium phosphate sollution then drying and repeating. When the solution dries it crystalizes and the crystals draw fat and oil into themselves and push to the surface.
I let dry till the crystals are visible then rinse with hydrogen peroxide solution.

Opening the pores and end grain with thinners, strippers, or acetone helps.

PS
For larger gaps I've used shims of wood veneer stripped from the backing of scrap paneling.

PPS
It just occurred to me that years ago I ran across the rules of a milsurp rifle competition and one thing they did not allow was glass bedding, the rifles had to be bedded just as they would have been in service.
That would probably apply to the target rifle bedding techniques as well. So if you intend to shoot in competition best check the rules for whatever gun club or organization is in control of the particular competition.

Think you might be better off with a new fore-end. Making one from a cut down No. 4 Mk 1 fore-end is NOT difficult (and Peter says it was very often done by armourers too). And then bedding the action in with Acraglass and keeping the barrel free floating. When bedding, make sure that it goes in between where your gap is too. Don´t think clubs worry too much about bedding nowadays.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tbonesmith

i've searched for patching drawers and got no results, if you could run through the process I'd appreciate it.

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Its good to see you are practicing economizing in these grim times, but you might as well get yourself some new underwear. By the time they need patching the elastic is usually worn out anyway. :)

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villiers Think you might be better off with a new fore-end. Making one from a cut down No. 4 Mk 1 fore-end is NOT difficult (and Peter says it was very often done by armourers too).

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Unless the fore end is a wreck I think I'd rather repair a correct No.5 fore end than use a repro.

If I'm reading it right theres only 1/4 of a MM of daylight showing, hardly enough to call for anything radical.

Some fore ends could benefit from being relieved a bit at the front of the inletting and then the action being settled a bit further down into the wood.
Then any slack would be taken up by a thin shim on either side of the trigger guard.
Depends on how the action looks in the stock as is. Its pretty common to find enfields that sit a triffle high in the wood and with plenty of spare wood underneath.

Man, everything I read here about these No. 5 forends has got me scared to death to try and take my No. 5 apart! I'm scared what I might do to it, and scared as to what I might find too.

Hereby hangs the catch with military rifles (and their ammo).

They are integrated into a logistical and administrative system that (mostly) works.

Military rifles are built to perform to a standard with a nominated ammunition set; ball as primary, tracer etc, very much secondary. Compare that to a commercial sporter: .22Hornet to .458 Win Mag, chrome moly or stainless, three action lengths, five barrel profiles, eight stock options, and then there are sights, and all combinations and permutations of the above.

If a soldier's rifle is not performing as advertised, it is placed in a repair system of spectacular size and scope. This is not your corner gun shop. This big gun shop only deals with a relatively tiny range of equipment compared to commercial operations but it has its own "pipeline" to the spare parts warehouses. Not only that, but ALL of the "customers'" weapons are "run over the pits" at least once annually, whether they have been used or not. It starts when unit "gun plumber" does an inspection on a problem weapon. He will swap out the dodgy bits and return it, or boot it up to a higher level facility if beyond his repair level as specified in the manuals.

These published maintenance instructions are to be followed to the letter; i.e. "if this, then that". Component "adjustment" is only allowed as per these instructions and, in these days of CNC, investment casting and injection moulded plastic, there is not much scope for that anyway.

So the nub is that our trusty old Lee Enfields are leftovers from a system from over a century ago. You cannot just write out a requisition for a swag of new parts for them and any repairs should be done as closely as possible to the original technique. As far as woodwork goes however, modern epoxies work very well if used correctly to repair cracks and splits.

Mr. Laidler's notes and references are pure gold, as are the technical documents posted by Ed Horton and others.

It is a bit scary; it is a bit "different" and they don't make them like that anymore, but it is worth the effort of doing it correctly

So I read the article by Peter Laidler and did the job, and it's come up beautifully. Thanks very much for the advice.
Here are some pictures.
Will shoot it tomorrow, and if all good will peg it then.

Ah, great to see an old fashioned Armourer at work again. Just like we used to do 'em - week in, week out, weeks at a time on the test range, bruised shoulders and torn elbows. A pleasure to see TBone and I hope that it's an inspiration for others

Has anyone got rid of their Ishy screw yet? Let's all see the result...., but only if it's GOOD!

Mr. Laidler

Something I have been curious about since I first got my hands on the illustration from the 1960 PAM below, it shows a maximum allowable clearance of .010 (ten thousandths) between the rear of the fore stock and the receiver socket for the No.5.

In real life practice when you worked on the No.5 did you allow the rear of the fore stock to not touch the receiver socket or have an “air gap” and let the forward section of the draws take all the recoil.

Or was this something allowed at this late date in time due to the phasing out of the No.5 Enfield from service.

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In American English this would be called “Texas Bedding” with wide open spaces. :yikes:

Rifle shoots well, will have to wait a bit to shoot some groups, today was standing at 100, and I didn't have time to shoot groups beforehand. But it all looks fine.

Just a quick update, I used the rifle in 200m comp today with some light loads of 174gn fmj's and the rifle performed very well, putting all the shots where they were pointed with the only major fliers being the result of a couple of case separations (This remington brass had done more than 15 reloads, and now it's dead).

BTW this rifle is now for sale in the WTS section of this site.

I apologize if i'm not so handy but...if i have ,we say, 0,1 mm. clear from contact between fore end and socket, what i have to do? to patch more lenght draws and to sand fore end until it touches tight receiver socket or what else?

You can have up to .010" gap between the rear of the fore-end and the front face of the butt socket. If it is MORE, then you should patch the draws to decrease the gap by drawing the fore-end rearwards to close the gap right up to nothing. It must be a tight fit after refitting or patching the fore-end

thank you all. Is it regular the fact that once fitted fore end, there's some clearence between wood and receiver if i try to spin the fore end?

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

Ah, great to see an old fashioned Armourer at work again. Just like we used to do 'em - week in, week out, weeks at a time on the test range, bruised shoulders and torn elbows. A pleasure to see TBone and I hope that it's an inspiration for others

Has anyone got rid of their Ishy screw yet? Let's all see the result...., but only if it's GOOD!

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Had a go at the 'Ishy' problem, those screws, they look so awful, unlike the women that come out of India.

Put a 3/16" brass threaded rod through the hole and an enfield bayonet nut on either end countersunk into the wood, looks great and matches the reinforcing strip and pin at the back of the fore stock.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by crsoll

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Had a go at the 'Ishy' problem, those screws, they look so awful, unlike the women that come out of India.

Put a 3/16" brass threaded rod through the hole and an enfield bayonet nut on either end countersunk into the wood, looks great and matches the reinforcing strip and pin at the back of the fore stock.

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I have seen a few SMLE's that have pieces of copper screwed to the drawers face where you have used timber to repair. Was this just a target rifle solution?

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Originally Posted by martins8589

I have seen a few SMLE's that have pieces of copper screwed to the drawers face where you have used timber to repair. Was this just a target rifle solution?

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No; in the case of Lithgow rifles using Coachwood fore-ends this was standard factory installation.

Sorry to be a party pooper CR (your thread 22) It looks cra.........., er......., daft. For several reasons! It's not mechanically effective, not as good or effective as the original UK Military designed 'ishy screw' and it's not authentic plus a few other reasons. Better to just fix it properly, drill out, glue, peg and plug and be done with it. Ir leave the screw. Both of which are EMER approved methods of frixing!

Just my opinion I hasten to add, based on nothing more than experience on the bench