Quote Originally Posted by intellivore View Post
I'm making Mt. Doom out of a hobbithole? The pit isn't going to pose an issue? That makes my day a world better!
Ah, Intellivore, you are one of the chosen few! The Old Scrounger is just what his name implies -- you got a parts gun that is one of the lucky ones. The Old Scrounger may or may not have had high standards for safety in selling a Grade 2 gun to you. We cannot tell from his website whether they used Britishicon Armourer's standards in selling you the gun -- perhaps they did to avoid a possible litigation. When I looked at the pictures of some of their Grade 2 No.5s, I cringed.

Fortunately, the Milsurps "league of experts" like Captain Laidlericon, & others have offered their expertise to help less knowledgeable folks like you and I . If you want to understand the value of having their masterful advice, I encourage you to read this thread: Combining a DP Enfield, a Shooter and a Gunsmith ended up with catastrophic failure! It's the Sad Saga of Old Joe, who bought a WWI Enfield that had been DP'd. He nearly blew his hand off, and was recovering from surgery.

The Saga had real meaning to me, because at the very time this thread was active, a friend of mine was lamenting about how he bought a '42 Long Branch Enfield from a less than honorable dealer, and paid full freight for it. When he checked the barrel, it had a big bulge in it under the upper barrel band. When I examined the gun, it was stamped DP all over the gun -- all stock pieces, barrel bands, etc. Because of the Sad Saga of Old Joe, I immediately understood DP stood for "Defective Parts", not Detroit or Dublin Police!

Had the Milsurps experts not offered their advice, I would have been a Bignorant, and advise my friend simply to counterbore the last 4 inches of the muzzle to relieve any stress on the barrel. Instead, I bought the gun from him for $150, repainted the DP stripes and stencils on the stock and fore-end, put an engraved plaque on the left side stating the gun had been "Decommissioned -- Unsafe to Shoot", and put a full, detailed explanation with barrel bulge graphics on a piece of paper and rolled it into the "butthole"(that term sounds rather crass) for posterity. Hopefully this saved someone's grandson ages hence.

As a Navy Corpsman, your job was to save lives. Safety is still the #1 priority for all old gun collectors. Shoot safe, shoot straight, and Semper Fi!
Robert (USNR)