If you own a Universal (Bren gun) carrier, then you need to own a Boys rifle. But if you end up with a boys with the flat Mk2 muzzle brake , then you are frustrated in that it does not quite fit into the back of a mk1 universal carrier. One or two of my friends have been feeling this frustration (I am lucky, my Boys rifle is a proper mk1 with the round muzzle brake) so a machinist friend of mine decided to help them out. He had a CNC program made up for a portion of the brakes, and made a very small run of them. Below are some photos of the two. The new one is still in the white:






Now here is the problem. When my friend went to install his new muzzle brake to replace the mk2 muzzle brake, it did not snug up against the front sight by a fair bit of space. What we are wondering is if there is perhaps a crush washer on the mk1 Boys rifle muzzle brake to properly align the orientation of the brake. So the first question to the other owners of the Boys rifles, is what is between your muzzle brake and your front sight?






My second question pertains to the special wrench to remove the muzzle brake. I found the wrench to be too tight on my original, and so of course it is too tight on these exact copies. Has anyone else found they have to remove just a slight bit of material from the wrenches to make them work? I am talking about maybe .003".

Any help that other owners can offer would be appreciated. These repros are pretty meticulous, so these two problems are a bit of a puzzle. The barrel currently on my rifle is of no help, since it is a 50 cal replacement barrel. The gunsmith who did the initial work took a few liberties, so it is difficult to ascertain what is correct on it. For instance, he changed the left hand thread pitch on my muzzle brake to a difference of 2 TPI from the original to match the threads he put on the end of my new barrel. Why he did this I can't fathom. I have my demilled original 55 cal barrel which is what you see in the photos.
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