FINISHED IT.... So I had this spare No4 action, and a Jungle carbine barrel...

Hey folks, for the past few weeks, I've been working on this one on and off.

Before the holidays, I bought a parts lot; in there was a decent jungle carbine barrel.

A few weeks later, I thought about what to do with it.

Looking at the "donor bin", I find an ugly No4 action. It had been spray painted with tremclad (very badly - moving parts were no longer moving, stuck in paint...)

I got to work. Stripped the paint, removed the rust, reblued (cold). Put the barrel on the action...

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I didn't want to order the repro stock from Numrich (I find it's slightly not to scale with the original Jungle forend). I took a slightly bruised No4 forend. I cut it as far forward as I could while avoiding cutting into the lightening holes. I cut part of the forend tip, and screwed / glued it to the shortened forend.

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Then, fun with the band sander. The Jungle forend is quite slimer than the No4..

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I dediced to use the No4 forend metal "cap" to make the jungle forend cap:

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I cut it in half, and did a tiny bit of mig welding to have it stay in place. I still have to clean up the weld.

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What about the rear receiver "band", or ring, which holds the handguard in place? I didn't want to remove the flash hider to slide the ring in place (or remove the barrel again... Mind you I should have thought about that when the barrel was off!). So I cut the ring open, twisted it a bit, put it around the barrel, and mig welded it back together.

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Time to carve the recess for the middle band:

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And fix one of the screw holes in the butt stock (it was off by quite a bit)

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Test fitting of the parts...

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I still have to do final finishing of the parts, and adjust the trigger pull, but that's about it. Almost done...

Lou

Nice job, I have one done almost exactly the same way.

The Numrich jungle carbine stocks are modified No 4 ones, so you could have saved a lot of work!

Thanks Maxwell. Indeed, easier with Numrich's parts. But I had lots of parts around here, and they were already paid for :)

Pretty much finished it this weekend; mostly happy with the end result, except the metal cap at the front of the forend; the original one on the Jungle fully wraps around the end-tip (not just a "cup"); I may work on this later when it's warmer...

Lou

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Fine job. Now what we're all dying to know is how does it shoot?

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Originally Posted by vintage hunter

Fine job. Now what we're all dying to know is how does it shoot?

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Argh, it won't be before April 26th before I get the time to test it!!! Range report will come, don't worry :D

Looks good Lou.

It will probably shoot better than a real No.5. Was it the Pakistanis who built No.5s with No.4 actions and didn't have the wandering zero problem? Nice work.

Impressive! Would you call it a No.4-1/2 ? Looking forward to seeing the test target.

So? How does she shoot?

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Originally Posted by Maxwell Smart

Nice job, I have one done almost exactly the same way.

The Numrich jungle carbine stocks are modified No 4 ones, so you could have saved a lot of work!

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Don´t think so! They cut the fore-end too short. Lou´s method is novel. I used a No. 4 fore-end and plugged the gap.

I have said this many times, but the last spare butts and fore-end parts that we had for No5 rifles were converted from plentiful No4 stockpiles. Obviously well done and the only truly visible (but pretty well invisibly done of course.......) way to tell was the slight line where the lightening slot in the fore-end was filled and plugged and the butt sling loop bracket recess was plugged. To be brutally honest, the fore-end end caps were all a complete waste of rations. Nothing but rust traps - so drill the rivet out and get rid of them.

Incidentally, I seem to recall that there were THREE types....... A simple 'full' end cap as per Lou's, closed at the front up to the barrel recess in the fore-end. A similar end cap but only partially closed up to the barrel trough and the third - a REAL rust trap if ever I saw one...., even more of a rust trap than an MGB - a cap that totally enclosed the end of the fore-end.

Great project but just a suggestion Lou, but why don't you strip it down and have it bead blasted and phosphated and painted as per the spec?