Question for Mr. Laidler

[Peter Laidler]

Good Morning Ed from a pretty cold with gusty snow Oxfordshire. Sorry about the delay but I'd never really looked into it. These comments relate to an earlier thread that I can't find but I'll get to the linseed oil bit soon..... I promise!

I have spoken to a couple of old Armourers about the ealier CHS queris but even the 'old' Armourers, who learned from their even older tutors, can only go back to the 20's.

Anyway, two of the oldies have given two answers. Both know about this and agree that it's true, there was an older spec but the .064 - 074- standard was brought in for two reasons. First because ammunition was coming from several plants and this was to cater for the variables. I can't quite see this because if that is so, then it's the ammunition plants that need to tighten up as opposed to the rifle CHS spec opening up.

The second was in order to standardise CHS across the whole .303" range. As the Maxim was wider, to cater for expansion, so the rifle was increased to this standard.

The point against this is that while they've done this for .303", they didn't go down this path for the 7.62mm rifles/LMG's GPMG's etc etc. which all have different specs to very close/tight for the L39's right up to the AI L96 sniper rifle to very loose for the red-hot minigun

Both seem pretty reasonable to me