1917 Lithgow range rifle

Latest acquisition.......

Shes a 1917 No1 MkIII, receiever, bolt and the butchered nose cap are matching, she has a 58' lithgow H barrel which unfortunately is an after market addition. The rear sight bed and guard are missing, and the buttstock is not the origional. (forearm is)

i have a good history on this rifle, she was totally origional in the 70's, the owner replaced the origional barrel with a brand new H barrel, took it to the range once and after having a goodtime went and bought a new Sportco Mod44, and the smelly has been in the cupboard ever since.

Read = awesome barrel......

Now, the problems

The nose cap has been reamed out, and i'm starting to make enquiries on effecting a repair to it. The middle band is missing (duh) and the barrel has been wrapped on what looks like the foam you stick on your door jamb to stop the wind coming inside in a 10mm wide strip just forward of where the middle band would sit. There is no rubber grommet at the nose cap. It appears they tried to fully float the barrel

The left side of the forweood has been filed down for what i believe was a central plate, the buttstock has been replaced with another 1917 one of earlier manufacture. The wood itself is fairly rough in places, tough the whoever relieved the barrel channel did a nice job. Some of the screws are, well, burred is an understatement, but not stripped.

Replacement parts = found a an early lithgow sight guard on evil bay, and Son has kindly pointed me towards an enfield rear sight bed that has been reamed for a H barrel...... I have also got a bead on an enfield sight with the windage adjustment, so she will eventually "look" correct.

What do you think? Leave as is, restock, or go the whole hog with new stock and reblueing?
http://s1087.photobucket.com/albums/...%20H%20Barrel/

Fix as needed and then shoot the heck out of it. Looks far to nice to even mess with re-bluing. That is a nice Lithgow. I would only repair/replace and leave as is. Nice find....

I agree with mohawk,it would make a great project
cheers

Thats a really nice rifle; I'd keep it in the spirit that the last owner was using it. I wouldn't close that nosecap up too much, if you keep a 20 thou gap you'll be fine and it'll look OK too. If you plug it now with a soft material mounted discreetly, it would not draw attention and work right too, I think you'd get away with not altering it back to stock spec.
I'd be making the outside look right, as you're doing with the rear sight etc, but then I'd spend the real time getting the internal stuff, ie bedding spot on. It'd be a ton of fun to see how small you could get the moa.
Good find, the fore end where the central plate has been is not too bad, I'd leave that alone too. I've yet to see a forend where the wood really had to be removed, even though the owner might have done it. If the sight is set up square to the bore , at least for me, it always seems to clear the wood OK.
Happy shooting, I want to see some 100yard targets!

It would appear thefore arm is warped, not sure what to do with it in regards to bedding. Considering the rather small price paid I may buy an aftermarket wallnut stock and put this 93 year old wood in a safe place.

May chuck a non matching nose cap on and bed it military style

Just use some BLO and it will come back

Forgive my ignorance, but I don't understand how blo will set the fore arm straight.

I've seen other wood brought back to true by applying hot oil or some other liquid to the concave side. It expands the fibres and causes it to straighten out. It could work on a stock, I've never tried it but it sounds doable. I have an 1891 Argentine stock that is full length and unused, still in the raw. I never installed it because it was warped. I couldn't see it in the auctioneers hand from 20 feet away. It wasn't until I tried to fit it that it became obvious. I will just have to give this a try. Thanks Bindi2

Ahhh, the learned speak much sense!

Well have to wait and see what happens. My priority ATM is to get this omark running, An outdoor entertainment area and some workbenches built in the garage.

Once the man-cave is done, I'll start tinkering:)

Ok, so i couldn't wait to tinker. I had intended to find a patch of forest in a few weeks and see what kind of groups it holds but there is 2 problems with that. The first being that it doesn't have a back sight, and the second being that the action is noticibly loose, to the point it rattles when you shake it.

I tripped her down today just to see what needed work / replacing and took some pics while i was at it.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4021-1.jpg

Barrel appears to lie straight i the barrel channel

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4017-1.jpg

Some kind of paper packing has been applied under the band, i assume to damped vibration?

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4019-1.jpg

Same paper at the nose cap/hand guard

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4026-1.jpg

Same at the action

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4030-1.jpg

The recoil lugs are well and truly scored, , it would seam that the action has not had much bearing surface on the copper plates judging by the polish marks. One fo them is noticibly bent

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4015-1.jpg

This black sticky mess looks like some kind of rubberised foam that has been glued in place to perhaps help float the barrel??

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4023-1.jpg

Barrel channel has been opened up from the knox to about 2 inches short of the middle band and apears free floating. The remainder of the channel has also been opened up as well, though its not free floating but its not really bedded either... perhaps this was never finished? Stock stud/sprin is missing.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4031-1.jpg

The sight guard will need some adjusting, as it rests on the underside of the barrel

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4032-1.jpg

No point to this, it just looks normal.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4036-1.jpg

I guess this funky arrangement has to do with the central plate? The back screw for the trigger guard does not appear to be standard, its a good 4mm longer than normal, again, i assume this is for a central plate.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4040-1.jpg

holes in the fore arm, im guessing are again fromt he thumb screw on the central plate? I cant remember ever seeing this metal joint before.

In the inletting for the action, there are obvious shiny areas on the surfaces where the trigger guard/action bear down when the king screw is tightened up, but i cant find one single mark on any other surface and the fit is quite loose. In fact, when i took the trigger guard off the forearm almost pulled of with it.

Now, if the learned people here would give suggestions on re-bedding this thing, i'm all ears.

Sooo........

I threw a central on today and tried to get an idea of where it was shooting. At 50 yards, some rounds would hit paper and some would miss.... this thing shoots like a shotgun.

My guess is that its shooting a 2 foot group at 50 yards. The reciever is so loose in the forearm that it almost rattles around in it, i reckon that after sitting in a cupboard for 20 years the wood has shrunk away form the reciever and its not remotely bedded.

more BLO a very good soaking

I'd be afraid to shoot an action that was rattling in the wood, seriously. You need to ID whats loose and quickly, a shot with a loose action will do a lot of damage if it goes wrong, ie I split the forend, which drove back both sides of the wrist to within a couple on inches of my eyes (safety glasses are always on, thank you to all those who taught me that good habit). A common looseness for dried out wood is the trigger guard fails to tighten upwards on the wood.
I'm not sure if you have a warped front end, if it was me etc, tighten everything up with the handguards off, see if the barrel is straight in the channel, if not, its probably those shims that have shifted, as they can control the left/right of the muzzle position with shims on the left/right of the wrist face.

Otherwise, all those paper shims are good to see, the last shooter was doing all the right stuff to tighten everything up, I've seen two Fultons rifles with the mid band shimmed with layers of paper under them, a well known and a good trick.

"Rattling around" has a bit of poetic licence in it, but it certainly isn't "tight". I placed some paper in the foreend and dropped the action back in, the paper would slide back out with a little effort. It left som nice grubby dirty streaks in the paper where the action is tighter against the wood, onfirming that there i not a lot of contact gooing on.it doesn't appear to be touch the draws at all and the copper plates are are not making equal contact with the recoil lugs, they certainly sit at different angles to one another. Ill go with bindis suggesstion and BLO the heck out of the wood and get it to swell a bit, the copper plates could use some lapping and a cats whisker knocked off the R draw to even them up..

Try looking at No4 bedding, and apply that here. There are plenty of good threads on this too. The rifles forend has been opened up to allow the barrel to float up to the front where there should be upward pressure to the barrel from the forend. Nb a lot like a No4.
By patching the draws with hardwood patches, you can re-bed the rifle without pieces of paper, and get a more or less permanent result.
Try looking at Peter Laidlers online articles and archived posts, this is detailed in those (in a sticky in the Lee Enfield Forum)

Thanks T-Bone.

Im not sure its going to be as easy as that, by chance i had the the trigger guard screw loosened and noticed that the foreend will see saw around the action, using the top of the copper plates as the fulcrum. When the front trigger guard screw is tightened it lifts the receiver away from the draws and leaves the barrel floating a ,=mm or so from the barrel channel. If you loosen the front guard screw and place upard pressure on the fore end behind the trigger it pivots back and lifts the barrel 4-5 mm from the barrel channel.

In either scenario, there still appears to be a gap between the fore end and the buttstock socket, in fact when the front trigger guard screw is tightened, you can see light through it (No idea how to close that up)

Perhaps filing down the top of the draws and copper plates may be in order? If its no good, i'll be chiselling it out anyway and replacing as per peters article.:confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BushyFromOz

In either scenario, there still appears to be a gap between the fore end and the buttstock socket, in fact when the front trigger guard screw is tightened, you can see light through it (No idea how to close that up)

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When you replace the draws with slightly oversized ones to be fitted to the rifles recoil lugs, that will draw the forend to the rear closing the gap between the collar and the forend. The front action screw shouldn't dictate the position of the forend relative to the barrelled action in the fore and aft direction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tbonesmith

The front action screw shouldn't dictate the position of the forend relative to the barrelled action in the fore and aft direction.

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Perhaps its warped on the vertical plane, you know, banana like?

For interests sake i packed the copper plate with a thin brass shim and it tightened that up perfectly, moderate pressure to mount the fore end, no grap between it and the collar, though i still cant get the receiver to contact the top of the draws. Seeing the distance between the recever and the rear trigger guard screw is fixed, does this still mean the draws are undersized?

Its not essential that the back of the receiver contacts the wood. If the packed draws take up the recoil shoulders nice and tight and the forend looks right I'd think its time for another range test.

I dropped it off at a smithies today to have the rear sight re-attached, be a couple of weeks till i get it to the range

Thanks T-bone

Spent the day cleaning her up and BLO'd the heck out of it after getting into it with some minwax. Bindi was right thought, after a lot of BLO the bedding has seemed to tighten up. Interesting, when i pulled the butt plate off i found a couple of large holes had been bored into the buttstock, i guess to reduce some weight?

Anyway, heres a pic of my two friends as they appear now.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4081-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4076-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSCF4074-1.jpg

Range test soon!

Fantastic old things arnt they. Have fun!