Rubbing handguard?

Hi all,

So I finally was able to shoot my new-to-me No4Mk2. I had noticed when I got it that there was a rub mark on the top of the barrel under where the upper band sits.

Anyhow, the first group I got is circled in red. So I took the upper hand guard off and shot another 5 rounds, lime green. The paper is 4.25" x 5.5" (1/4 sheet). Ignore the other tape marks and the writing.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...fd7f0afd-1.jpg

So should I be relieving the inside of the hand guard to stop the rubbing? That is what would cause the vertical stringing like that, correct?

I am pretty sure the horizontal spacing on the green group was me, with a little bit of wind thrown in.

Thanks

I am sure there will be forumers along shortly to assist you but you neglect to state the range, ammo, does it have the singer sight finely adjustable or just the flip sight 3-600yds.
The sights are a tad tricky to use and if you have not used peeps before which dependant on where you sit the front blade in relation to the rear peep hole can cause stringing.
Ideally you want the blade in the centre of the rear peep and the top of the blade level with the centre of the rear peep hole, you also do not say if it is off a rest, free hand or with a sling nor what year the rifle is, temperature and so on etc.

The barrel could be a tad tired, have you had a look at the bedding of the action and the barrel there can be a myriad of things that affect the accuracy of these types of rifles and there sure is a lot of people here with far more experience than I to help you.
Also the forum likes lotsa pics so they can asses things they are pretty good at what they do.
Most are long standing armourers from different countries and arms of their respective services or they are highly qualified gunsmiths so you have come to the right place. :thup:

I'm not going to be as kindly or diplomatic as Cinders but I'm sure that he's thinking what I'm going to say. If it's a Mk2 rifle I can assume that it is a Mk1 clicker type backsight. We don't know the range either but if you don't mind me cutting to the quick and being brutally honest, then immediately, there's one or two or both BIG problems. That group or groups is/are absolutely dire to the extreme. In fact, it's crap! With groups like that, even at 300 yards it's not even worth continuing. I would get another reputable shooter to try to get something better.

You always fire 7 round groups. two warmers into the bank and a group of 5 (or 6 to cater for a DECLARED flyer!) You need to get yourself some factory Mk7 ball ammo of equal consistency and when you have, get a good shooter to do a re-shoot and come back and tell us the ammo and the range. But to be honest, a group like that looks like you've been looking through the gap above the aperture slide!

Sorry to be so harsh and tell-it-like-it-is but...................

It could be rubbing because the action is moving about in the lower forestock, so I wouldnt take anything off until the entire gun is checked out. There is a good article on here on replacing draws, which you can use to assess how tight they are, they do need to be tight and they do wear out. Pics help a lot.

Ignoring any "unrecoverable user errors": I have had rifles that have shot as badly or worse than that at first, and there was always a reason other than aiming through the wrong gap in the metal!

The clue is the difference between the two groups. The one in red has huge vertical stringing, but little horizontal stringing. The one in yellow/green has much less vertical stringing, but more horizontal.

A Lee-Enfield N. 4 is properly set up with a downwards pressure of the barrel on the fore-end. One would therefore expect to see a rubbing mark one the bottom of the barrel.

However, the shooter has observed a rubbing mark on the top of the barrel. This indicates an upwards pressure of the barrel on the handguard. This is diametrically opposed to what it should be, and is the likely cause of the vertical stringing. But it seems that the bearing has still acted to reduce sideways vibration.

With the handguard removed, the "lime green" group was obtained. Since the bearing has now been removed, the barrel can vibrate more in the horizontal direction as well, being effectively free-floating. The group is unusually large, but nevertheless better than the first one. However, it is accepted that No 4s do not in general show their best when they are free-floating. And the huge vertical stringing has disappeared.

With all respect for those who are learned in the arcane art of setting up and repairing draws, may I suggest that the first check should be to remove the fore-end completely and examine it for warping? If the fore-end is seriously* warped, then trying to correct for this by fiddling the draws is possibly a waste of time. A warped fore-end could be eternally unsatisfactory**, as you cannot be sure that the wood is stable - it may literally vary with the weather, i.e. humidity, and temperature, as it heats up because of proximity to a hot barrel.

If the fore-end is warped, rather replace it, and then set up the new fore-end by the book!

*I.e plainly obvious to the naked eye

** Been there, done that. Believe me, unless it is a highly collectible piece*** you should save yourself the trouble****.

***It was

**** Forget "all-original" - I want it to work!

What did the third group do? Could it have the damned crack? Maybe a loose trigger guard screw?

It's a scientific experiment and we do need to know what your constants were and what variable you canged(obviously removing the handguard). To many things unclear, we need to know you were testing the rifle and not yourself.

To be really and truly honest, with two groups - and I hate to call them groups because they ain't nothing that I recognise as groups - like that you've got to start by eliminating the most obvious haven't you? I'd start by eliminating the human factor and getting another known decent shooter to take the reins first. With scattering like that, only when we have eliminated the human factor can we start a proper diagnosis. The next thing we need to know is at what range this scattering took place at and what ammo was he wasting? Was it factory ball, home loads, old wartime stuff recovered from a crashed plane - or what?

Sorry chaps, but diplomacy and tact don't help in these situations

After reading Cinders and Peters first posts morning it gave me time to think at work. So before supper I got the rifle out and looked over things.

What I learned: The collar is too long.

All the screws were tight. After getting the handguards off I noticed some up and down movement of the stock around the front trigger guard screw. So I removed the collar and washer, adjusted the screw to the start thread, and counted the turns till the screw tightened. That was 8 full turns plus about 1/6 of a turn (I marked it with pencil). I put the collar and washer back in and repeated. It was then 6 1/4 turns till it tightened.

So I'll have to shorten the collar and see how it shoots then.

Sorry for wasting all your time.

PS Where are you guys finding all this MK7 ball? I'd like to get some, but the guys I know that have it are not selling, and I can't go to the local shop and order it.

Cdn303: Out of curiosity, how much up and down free-play would you estimate there was? A few thousandths of an inch or was it really loose? Your story provides yet another useful check for novice Lee Enfield users prior to attempting to shoot one of these old girls. Please show us a target after you shorten the collar and take your time shortening it. Use at least a set of vernier calipers to measure the length before you start working on it and repeat the test you describe after the first couple of thou. You'll rapidly see how much you have to shorten in total.

Ridolpho

Before you shorten the collar soak the forend in BLO . The wood has dried out and shrunk. Dont fix a problem and make another.

I had a similar thing with my T the action was loose to the extreme and I mean really loose, also the draws were smacked to bits so I had it rectified by a reputable stock maker in such a way the draws will never need doing as the action now thrusts against a block.
I am sorry for this some what unethical way of doing this to a T but I reasoned my stock maker will eventually retire and I have no intention of selling the T whilst I am still vertical to the earth that is up to my son what he does with it.

I strongly recommend you listen to the advice given here as the crew have honestly been there and done that with these weapons and to go against or not follow their knowledge may lead you down the track where you compound a simple fix into a nightmare costly.
And trust me there may have been 20 million (rough guess I saw this figure somewhere) of all types of the 303's built but parts (genuine)are drying up or getting mighty expensive, there are some really good people here and I say that with sincerity well trained or have fallen into the pit and have passed on the knowledge to others so they do not suffer the same fate.

So we need pics, range shot, barrel wear (get barrel gauges for it) mine range from the .295 - 303.5 in .05 increments, is the crown on the barrel O.K, load data = projie type, primer, case, powder type charge weight, Head Spacing I use .64 gauge and have a .67 and a .72 No Go (Re head space it by a gunsmith) there was an emergency one of .74 but boy it is what it says (Do not use gunsmith time)
Anyway that will keep you typing for a bit just trying to give you the road to go down so the good guys can help you sort it quickly and correctly and not get frustrated like I did with some of my 303's due to shear lack of knowledge. :D

---------- Post added at 09:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:19 AM ----------

Brian Dick may be able to help you with the Ammo bit cannot say, I cringe when I think of all those thousands of rounds and 303's that were turfed into a deep sea trench by the army out of an LC near Rottnest Island here in Western Australia a long time ago.

You could try cartridge collectors but again they may not part with it and if they do it is expensive, steer clear of the Indian Mk VII P.O.F ammo it is pure sh*te I used it for a while and would have done better with a handful of wheat.

@Ridolpho. As close as I can ascertain the difference between with the collar and without is 0.025".

@ Bindi2. When I first got the rifle the stock was very dirty. So I scrubbed it with 0000 steel wool and a 50/50 RLO/Turpentine mix. It kept soaking it up, so I kept applying more till it stopped soaking it up.

I am kicking myself in the butt that I didn't catch the movement around the front trigger guard screw sooner. :banghead:

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

would have done better with a handful of wheat.

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:rofl:

I'm not sure what's available in your area. If you can't find decent surplus Mk.7 or Mk.7z, then try to find some new factory Remington-UMC as it's made with flat base 174 grain projectiles to Mk.7z specification. I know others in Canada who are shooting it so it must be available somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Brian Dick

I know others in Canada who are shooting it

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Remember, IVI still makes it. If you have the right connections, you get brand new Mk7Z...

If you want to re-fit the fore-end all you've got to do is follow the detailed instructions in an article I wrote a couple of years ago. It also details how to go about calculating the correct length of fore-end collar. It's not magic or scientific or difficult. Just time consuming. BUT, it is stupidly easy to make a mistake and have to patch up and start again. But hey....., that how we learn. That's how I learned as an apprentice.

But I have to say, we STILL don't know at what distance you fired those scatterings. And I have to say that in my limited experience, loose indefinable 'groups' like that ain't the fault of a fore-end. A loose fore-end causes two general patterns. A distinctly straight lined string or a large but distinct oval 'group'. Difficult to explain but once you've seen them, as we did, displayed on Mr Vineys classroom wall, you'd recognise them

Jim,
Does IVI offer .303 Mk.7z ball for commercial sales or strictly for and military, (Ranger), use? I know the CF probably don't require it anymore.
Brian

Quote:

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Remember, IVI still makes it. If you have the right connections, you get brand new Mk7Z...

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Hi Jim,
You are incorrect, IVI manufactures MkVIIIZ (for unfathomable reasons) and 180gr soft point which is issued to the Rangers. I have also seen Winchester "White Box" on issue.

Five years ago, the (now former) CF "Small Arms Life Cycle Manager" told me that he had directed the Rangers who were lucky enough to have been issued a No4MkI*(T) to mark the scope turret with "white out" for zeroing purposes rather than use the range graduations on the scope.

That was the official "solution" to the complaints that the scope graduations did not match the trajectory of the issued ammo.

Totally ignoring the fact that the open sights won't work either...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brian Dick

Does IVI offer .303 Mk.7z ball for commercial sales

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AFAIK Brian, IVI won't sell anything for commercial use. The stuff I saw procured came directly through the hole in the bottom of the bucket...I'm sure some of these current serving Rangers can confirm or deny that.

I know you'd like a boxcar full...but...

GENERAL DYNAMICS - Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada - Ammunition, Small Calibre

GENERAL DYNAMICS - Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada - CDN MK8Z and British Soft Point

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

what distance you fired those scatterings.

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Best terminology I have heard in a long time for a rather dismal group......:rofl:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lee Enfield

GENERAL DYNAMICS - Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada - Ammunition, Small Calibre

GENERAL DYNAMICS - Ordnance and Tactical Systems - Canada - CDN MK8Z and British Soft Point

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Well, well, well...and how do you deal with these people? Any idea? If this ammo was available, I should think every dealer in Canada would not only know, but be carrying stock...?

I found this under their legal notices...GD-OTS Canada's products are destined exclusively to governmental, military and law enforcement agencies.

It would be a long hard road but members of Parliament need to be reminded that tax payers for this ammo and should get the benifit when it is surplus. National shoting organisations should be asking why taxpayers are having to buy IMPORTED products when a Canadian factory is making the stuff! We should be doing the same in the UK in regard to Radway Green BAE owned but tax payer funded. The other way is to buy shares and just make a bloody nuisance of yourself at the AGM.

Good thought Rob but even if you ordered a million rounds of ammo, it'd take a day to produce that trifling amount and thay just ain't interested in the economics of a days work....... Take 9mm as a good example. If it's uneconomic to make that, what chance does .303 stand?

Peter if they opened the market to the world would there not be enough of us in the world shooting the ol' girls to fulfil 10-20 million round run?

Yep, you're right Cinders but someone would have to pay for it on delivery. And that's the hard bit.

But if you went to China or India, like the poms did to HXP in Greece, and told them what you wanted, I expect that they'd sell you all you wanted and at a good price.

The way things are at the moment, listening and reading here for example, it seems as though the manufacturers of .303" ball are telling YOU the shooters what you can have as opposed to you dictating to THEM what you really want! It reminds me of the days of Leyland cars........... The dealers showrooms were full of cars - but not the cars people wanted!

I tend to agree with Robert303 here as far as I can understand...we have an ammunition company in Canada, I've walked the property, and they're capable of making everything from .22 to the largest arty ammo. Of course they used to make and commercially sell everything as well. Somewhere along the line someone decided it wasn't to be any more and it stopped. As far as I know, there's NO ONE making ammo in Canada on a commercial scale any more. That's sad, why pay import when we could be gleaning export from ammo demands... From what I could understand of IVI when I was there during the winter, they would run until the ammo contract was filled and then shut down completely. The fresh unmarked base of snow around all their facility attested to that. Just the test facility was operating, testing 20mm or 30mm...nothing else was happening.

Annanuvverfing that I learned from the ammo p[eople at RO when they had a 'small-order' facility for people like the Police and such like is that if you needed specialised stuff, it was cheaper to buy in components than produce on site. And their labour costs would hinder any pre manufacture costs that have to be added to the total cost. Actual manufacturing machine running time is cheap relatively speaking.

2 million rounds from Russia is the way to go

Quote:

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Well, well, well...and how do you deal with these people? Any idea? If this ammo was available, I should think every dealer in Canada would not only know, but be carrying stock...?

I found this under their legal notices...GD-OTS Canada's products are destined exclusively to governmental, military and law enforcement agencies.

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It's Mk8 and I don't think there is any point unless you have a Vickers to run it out of

They won't allow any sales of it anyway...

'They' won't allow any sales. I often wonder who 'They' are. The company, the government? Or is it just one awkward little individual.
I say this as I remember having major problems with a bank in the U.K. where my family was told we woud have to get a court judgement to alter a family trust. The awkward b----d retired and low and behold everything became 'That shouldn't be a problem' and it wasn't.
Same thing when my father died, one b-----d in the Inland Revenue gave us grief. She retired and all was solved.
There are times it is worth making it very clear that you will find out who 'They' are and making sure that 'They' will get grief. I know it's easier said than done but there are times it must be done.

Peter you are probably and sadly right, with a good analogy of British Leyland 'You WILL love the Austin Allegro'. It is just a pity that we cannot find a manufacturer of Mark VII bullets somewhere. As to the U.K. it appears that we have Privi Partizan and Sellier and Bellot to thank for supplying new ammo with PP, from what I see, having almost a monopoly on the market.

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Originally Posted by Robert303

I often wonder who 'They' are.

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If you read the link that comes with, you can see who "They" are. This ain't the UK, it's not banking or anything else, so apples and oranges. I can pretty much promise you we aren't getting any of that product. Too bad too. I've shot enough of it to know I'd like a source.

I agree with all this thread states from others here on this site, if IVI gave it a go and opened the doors to the commercial market I am sure sales would be sustainable.
I get sick and tired of shortages in either pills or components here in Au we had ammunition factories but they all closed for obvious reasons.

There is a market here and the world for the 303 round not only VII's but VIII's as well seems I have seen lotsa Vickers on utube shooting the stuff.
If you have a good product people buy it, I keep going on about Taipan 303 projies Malcolm could have just have run his business just producing that .312 170gn HPFB pill as the demand always outstripped his production runs.

RP still make the brass and loaded ammo so do Highland so the viable market is there.
Perhaps in this instance the CEO said the laws are to restrictive No Sales.
As the armed forces have more money and bigger toys to feed than we the general public will ever own.

So the Enfield shooters will just keep plodding along reloading as we do just glad I own a bolt gun and not a Vickers to much press time for a minutes fun, but oh boy what fun?
:D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CINDERS

if IVI gave it a go and opened the doors to the commercial market I am sure sales would be sustainable.

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They would be wealthy beyond belief...

Hi Jim,
Re No 32. Sorry I was not having a go at you personally. It just makes me so mad that no national shooting organisation has the clout to kick MPs backsides hard enough to stop nonsense like this.

Understood Robert. Thing that's really sad is we used to be able to buy from those people. Different name to some extent. Dominion, IVI, CIL, all now corralled under one logo...and if they did sell worldwide, they'd employ thousands daily, ship worldwide and glean overwhelming cash to bolster the economy. Tax dollars...on and on...so we have the same thought here.

As a slight aside I wonder how Cdn 303 is getting on with his rifle or if he has had the chance to shoot anymore 'groups' yet?
I started to do some poking about today to try and find out if there was any way of finding out just how much ammunition was used by the civilian market in the U.K.
I do have some leads but will never be able to get a breakdown by calibre unless every importer decides to tell me, which I don't think they will.
However If we said the annual .303 market was 200,000 rounds plus 70,000 bullets we should not be far out, from a reliable source in the trade. I must admit that is lower than I thought.
When I think back to my pistol shooting days when I, just as a club shooter, was probably using 400 rounds a month it just shows how things have gone downhill.
Nowdays on a good shoot I might get through 100 rounds, on a lot of them I'm lucky to fire 50.

I remember shooting 40,000 rounds of Mk8z in a day.........

Lucky sod Peter? seems there is always plenty of 8x57 stuff in the world commercially maybe we should look to Europe for an ammunition manufacturer as it seems no one on the western side wishes to explore the market.
Yep orders would spike to begin with but I feel the market is sustainable if I had a spare @$35million* (just a figure guys) lying around I build a factory

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

40,000 rounds of Mk8z in a day

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Tuning the Bren or Vickers guns I should think.

No 38 Peter stop making us jealous! What's even worse is that you did not even have to pay for the ammo! As a matter of interest does anyone know if Wolf ammunition is imported into the U.K.?

Well earned in the service of the Queen eh Peter? My money's on the Vickers Guns!

No.38 and by jingies being paid to loose off those rounds, imagine Peter ahhh! hang on a sec it may need another tweak get me another 250 round belt please or another 5 mags should do it nicely good for you anyway Peter we are not jealous really???????

Has to be some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow as I could imagine your road to the top of the pinnacle would not have been all beer and skittles I doff my hat to you.:thup:

They were only used to firing 3 to 5 or even 8 round bursts and didn't seem to understand the meaning of firing looooooooong bursts. So I had to ask my son Robert, then aged about 12 or13 to show them what a loooooooong burst was. 250 rounds is a long burst. He got a round of applause for his efforts.

Off the subject a bit, but going back to the video of the Vickers firing single shots a week or so ago. No water cooling seems to have been apparent and the biggest killer of barrels is heat (biggest killer or machine guns per se is vibration by the way.....) and rapid single shot fire through what is really a thin walled tube, no greater than an SMLE barrel with absolutely no chance of any cooling whatsoever because it is contained within an stifled enclosed casing was sacriledge to me. What a dopey way to knacker a barrel for want of a few pints of water............ Just my view of course!

Like running an engine with no coolant or oil.

Yep....., that's as good an analagy as it gets Flyer.

As Peter so rightly points out LOOOOOOOOOOONG "bursts" are murder on barrels, even ones in a water bath like a Vickers.

Besides which, if the idea is to "neutralize" a piece of real estate (and potential "occupants" thereof), constant hosing is not very productive, except in the movies, where they only fire blanks..........and even blanks are Hell on the guns because of heat build-up from propellant combustion alone.

The standard drill is to fire a burst and observe the result, adjust if required, repeat until "problem" goes away. Wild "swinging" of the gun in "spray and pray" mode is just not on.

Those stories from the first "Great Unpleasantness" of the prodigious performance of Vickers guns probably don't mention that they would have been firing, observing and adjusting as part of the drill. Fire, observe, adjust; ad nauseum or whatever.

If, as is the practice, you have multiple guns, they fire short bursts in turn. Each gun is aimed to produce a "beaten zone" that slightly overlaps that of the previous gun.

The guns don't have to be close to the "pointy end", just sited so that the bullets land on the target, which may be well over 1000 yds away. Distance is GOOD!, As soon as a machine gun is identified as firing in a "pattern", or just plain identified, it becomes a priority target for "counter-fire", sometimes from opposing MGs, but usually from mortars, which, of course, easily out-range (2 - 8Km), something like a Vickers (1 - 3 Km). Of course, popping mortar rounds into the sky will be noticed by the "locating battery" with their nifty "field radars" and "counter-counter_fire" will ensue..........

Turning on a "battlefield" radar, in turn, attracts the notice of the Electronic Warfare spooks who will accurately locate it in minutes and arrange for "attitude adjustment by HE"... And so on.........

Whilst modern "locating" radar can also circumvent much of the above and can accurately locate a machine gun firing regular bursts from a fixed location, the really cool one is modern "accoustic" sensors, which, unlike radar, are passive and have a minuscule electronic signature. However, if the battlefield is NOISY, ( a LOT of lead in the air constantly, who'da thought it?), the accoustic systems struggle a bit.

Try this on utube on the Model E-4 M-60 firing eight and a half belts with a single pull of the trigger 1 min 45 seconds they say the new composite metal barrels are good for 15,000 rounds would love one like that on my 303's bit boring to watch but the end of the belt you get a good look of relief from the firer now it had finished and boy that really is a loooooooooooooooooooong burst........M60 Machine Gun shooting 850 Rounds in ... - YouTube