Gallery of Dramas. Broken Enfield Parts!

[Bruce_in_Oz]

I stand to be corrected, but I think that the cocking piece is NEVER meant to strike the rear of the bolt body.

The collar on the striker is absolutely intended to strike the rear of the bolt head. This does two things: 1. Ensures constant striker protrusion, and, 2. Drastically reduces the potential for damage to the thread / mating surfaces at the tail-end of the striker.

The first point is tied in with the selective fitting of the striker to the bolt head. This was, I understand, done as part of selecting a set of components to assemble a bolt. The idea is that gauged components were selected for "best fit'.

The bolt lugs had to have the correct amount of engagement with the shoulders in the receiver.

The bolt head had to fit so that the "wing" of the head lined up with the lug on the bolt body or no more than a few degrees over.

The striker had to fit the bolt head within the specified protrusion range.

The striker had to tighten into the cocking piece such that:

a. The protrusion previously set was maintained,
b. The keeper screw would enter the rear of the cocking piece and prevent rotation, and,
c. The safety notches in the cocking piece would be correctly aligned with the driving surface of the locking bolt when cocked or at rest.

Remember that early SMLEs used a striker that had a lug which lined up with a notch in the rear of the bolt head. This was to ensure that if the bolt was not closed fully, the striker could not ignite a cartridge and do some serious damage. This required some seriously fine machining to ensure that the lug was correctly aligned with the keeper screw recess at the rear and, just because they could, the qualifying of the thread at the rear of the striker. This striker required a LOT of careful setup and gauging during manufacture. It is not surprising that "Striker 1B" replaced it as part of the process of increasing production rate. "Striker 1B" is the common model with the two cutouts that are engaged by the striker assembly / removal tool.