Combining a DP Enfield, a Shooter and a Gunsmith ended up with catastrophic failure!

[Claven2]

A lesson to take away from all this is to ALWAYS disassemble any new milsurp and check it over for obvious faults BEFORE firing it. On Enfields, for example, there are a number of potential problems you can spot that could be problematic. Holes in the receiver are only one thing. Others include areas where welds have been ground away to make a firearm operable gain, Locking recesses that have been milled away as part of a demil job, disintegrated or badly cracked draws in the forestock are but a few.

I've seen some real horror stories over the years. A couple I saw recently included a Chinese military SKS where the knox form had a 1.5" long slot milled into the BOTTOM of it so it could only be seen with the forestock off. this was part of a large import batch and the dealer had no way of seeing it, but the owner caught the problem in a detail strip before firing.

Another was a Steyr M95 long rifle still in 8x50. Same issue, the bottom half of the knox form and part of the receiver ring was completely milled away, but it could still have been chambered and fired. A friend had me inspect it for him as he was going to reload for it and shoot it - only thing that prevented an earlier accident was the lack of available ammo!

What we should maybe do is start posting photos of demilled rifles and what features make them demilled and therefore unsafe and sticky it in the general discussion forum. Thoughts?