Question on Long Branch #4 (T)

[rgg_7]

I take a coat hanger and make a removal tool. Cut a length approx 18" long and bent one end 90 degrees x 1/4" long. File the bent end to a point. You insert the bent in the stock and feel the hole in the washer. You give it a little twist and hook end of the tool will seat under the washer. Once under the washer gentley pull back to remove the washer. It will be as good as new and can be reinstalled.

[Roger Payne]

There is a tool for doing the job. I was lucky enough to pick one up some years ago.....but guess what? It's just as rgg -7 describes, although the curved tip is rounded off a little so as not to dig in to the leather.

ATB

[Peter Laidler]

The official thing was called a 'TOOLS, removing, wad, stockbolt' It was a sort of shaped straightened wire coathanger sort of shape hooked to pull the wad out - but made of brass

[boltaction]

Well, I made the tool out of the coathanger, and it worked like a hot damn! Now of course is that I can't get the screw loosened for love nor money, and I'm not THAT curious about the markings on the inside of the buttsocket..........

[Peter Laidler]

Ah, for that 'screw', the BOLT, stock, you need a really useful Armourers tol called a BRACE, Armourers and a 'BIT, screwdriver, stockbolt. You'd rotate the earth against its rotational axis using that combination

[Lee Enfield]

Yes, sorry, forgot to mention that. The butt and cheekpiece seem to be original. I was going to pop the butt off it, and look at the socket markings on it, but it has the washer still inside on the screw, and I hate digging those things out because I always seem to wreck them. Anyone have any tricks on that? I do have a couple of really long screwdrivers of course (who doesn't who owns a Lee Enfield?) but they have a broad blade. Is the trick maybe to get a long screwdriver with a narrow blade that will fit through the little hole in the washer?????

Ed

Long Branch snipers do not have the markings under the socket which the brit's do.

I had a Brit which I believed to have been renumbered, I thought I would outsmart the vandal.

Imagine my surprise to find the shelf of wood to have been removed and replaced with a glued in wooden plate. ;-)

[Brian Dick]

The Armourer's brace and bit are scarce on the ground. Use a square shank large screw driver. You can get a wrench on the shank and break it loose that way.

[boltaction]

I did that, and am sad to report that it was my screwdriver which loosened instead--the shank now rotates freely in the handle, and the bolt (my apologies, Peter) is still firmly entrenched in the butt...........

Ed

[tiriaq]

I have used a socket extension with a bit to fit the bolt, coupled with a 1/2" breaker bar.

[Peter Laidler]

In answer to Lee Enfields querie above............ Lowering the top ridge of the butt socket insert part was an approved method of tightening up a loose butt. We'd rasp down about .2", glue and peg a hardwood block in place then make good until the butt was a tight fit in the butt socket.

I know that some commercial gunsmiths and amateurs (we used to call the enthusiastic amateurs funsmiths.....) used to do the same, but - and it pains me to say it - but they'd glue (or not even glue.....) a slip of emery cloth or cardboard in place. Ugh!