Gallery of Dramas. Broken Enfield Parts!

[Claven2]

I love this thread, though I can't for the life of me understand those cocking pieces being broken so frequently in that spot. Frankly, apart from resisting spring pressure at the sear, it's not an overly stressed part. The fracture looks, to me, like an impulse fracture and not a ductile one from plastic deformation. This suggests over-hardening in the metal structure, possibly martensitic steel throughout, while Pearlite with a hard surface or Bainite throughout would have been a much better heat treatment goal for these bits. But then, it's possible that the manufacture was bunged up to begin with and the wrong hardness was the result.

The bolt heads aren't failing in tension as the bolt design would not generate enough force on extraction. I'm thinking it's a combination of too much bolt head slop in battery coupled with uneven wear on the locking lugs causing uneven shear stress on firing. Again, the fractures are not from plastic deformation but look immediate.

One failure I've seen fairly often (no pics though) is the receiver wearing out such that the bolt has too much vertical travel causing iffy sear engagement. You see it on receivers with a lot of miles on them, and more often than not a few rebuilds, some of which were probably done in India where one wonders if the armory had gauges.

I have also seen the receiver bridge inserts fall out on some No.4's, presumably from some shock to the receiver.