1917 Lithgow range rifle

[BushyFromOz]

Latest acquisition.......

Shes a 1917 No1 MkIII, receiever, bolt and the butchered nose cap are matching, she has a 58' Lithgow H barrel which unfortunately is an after market addition. The rear sight bed and guard are missing, and the buttstock is not the origional. (forearm is)

i have a good history on this rifle, she was totally origional in the 70's, the owner replaced the origional barrel with a brand new H barrel, took it to the range once and after having a goodtime went and bought a new Sportco Mod44, and the smelly has been in the cupboard ever since.

Read = awesome barrel......

Now, the problems

The nose cap has been reamed out, and i'm starting to make enquiries on effecting a repair to it. The middle band is missing (duh) and the barrel has been wrapped on what looks like the foam you stick on your door jamb to stop the wind coming inside in a 10mm wide strip just forward of where the middle band would sit. There is no rubber grommet at the nose cap. It appears they tried to fully float the barrel

The left side of the forweood has been filed down for what i believe was a central plate, the buttstock has been replaced with another 1917 one of earlier manufacture. The wood itself is fairly rough in places, tough the whoever relieved the barrel channel did a nice job. Some of the screws are, well, burred is an understatement, but not stripped.

Replacement parts = found a an early lithgow sight guard on evil bay, and Son has kindly pointed me towards an enfield rear sight bed that has been reamed for a H barrel...... I have also got a bead on an enfield sight with the windage adjustment, so she will eventually "look" correct.

What do you think? Leave as is, restock, or go the whole hog with new stock and reblueing?
http://s1087.photobucket.com/albums/...%20H%20Barrel/

Information

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[Mohawk]

Fix as needed and then shoot the heck out of it. Looks far to nice to even mess with re-bluing. That is a nice Lithgow. I would only repair/replace and leave as is. Nice find....

[user1]

I agree with mohawk,it would make a great project
cheers

[RJW NZ]

Thats a really nice rifle; I'd keep it in the spirit that the last owner was using it. I wouldn't close that nosecap up too much, if you keep a 20 thou gap you'll be fine and it'll look OK too. If you plug it now with a soft material mounted discreetly, it would not draw attention and work right too, I think you'd get away with not altering it back to stock spec.
I'd be making the outside look right, as you're doing with the rear sight etc, but then I'd spend the real time getting the internal stuff, ie bedding spot on. It'd be a ton of fun to see how small you could get the moa.
Good find, the fore end where the central plate has been is not too bad, I'd leave that alone too. I've yet to see a forend where the wood really had to be removed, even though the owner might have done it. If the sight is set up square to the bore , at least for me, it always seems to clear the wood OK.
Happy shooting, I want to see some 100yard targets!

[BushyFromOz]

It would appear thefore arm is warped, not sure what to do with it in regards to bedding. Considering the rather small price paid I may buy an aftermarket wallnut stock and put this 93 year old wood in a safe place.

May chuck a non matching nose cap on and bed it military style

[Bindi2]

Just use some BLO and it will come back

[BushyFromOz]

Forgive my ignorance, but I don't understand how BLO will set the fore arm straight.

[bearhunter]

I've seen other wood brought back to true by applying hot oil or some other liquid to the concave side. It expands the fibres and causes it to straighten out. It could work on a stock, I've never tried it but it sounds doable. I have an 1891 Argentine stock that is full length and unused, still in the raw. I never installed it because it was warped. I couldn't see it in the auctioneers hand from 20 feet away. It wasn't until I tried to fit it that it became obvious. I will just have to give this a try. Thanks Bindi2

[BushyFromOz]

Ahhh, the learned speak much sense!

Well have to wait and see what happens. My priority ATM is to get this omark running, An outdoor entertainment area and some workbenches built in the garage.

Once the man-cave is done, I'll start tinkering

[BushyFromOz]

Ok, so i couldn't wait to tinker. I had intended to find a patch of forest in a few weeks and see what kind of groups it holds but there is 2 problems with that. The first being that it doesn't have a back sight, and the second being that the action is noticibly loose, to the point it rattles when you shake it.

I tripped her down today just to see what needed work / replacing and took some pics while i was at it.



Barrel appears to lie straight i the barrel channel



Some kind of paper packing has been applied under the band, i assume to damped vibration?



Same paper at the nose cap/hand guard



Same at the action



The recoil lugs are well and truly scored, , it would seam that the action has not had much bearing surface on the copper plates judging by the polish marks. One fo them is noticibly bent



This black sticky mess looks like some kind of rubberised foam that has been glued in place to perhaps help float the barrel??



Barrel channel has been opened up from the knox to about 2 inches short of the middle band and apears free floating. The remainder of the channel has also been opened up as well, though its not free floating but its not really bedded either... perhaps this was never finished? Stock stud/sprin is missing.



The sight guard will need some adjusting, as it rests on the underside of the barrel



No point to this, it just looks normal.



I guess this funky arrangement has to do with the central plate? The back screw for the trigger guard does not appear to be standard, its a good 4mm longer than normal, again, i assume this is for a central plate.



holes in the fore arm, im guessing are again fromt he thumb screw on the central plate? I cant remember ever seeing this metal joint before.

In the inletting for the action, there are obvious shiny areas on the surfaces where the trigger guard/action bear down when the king screw is tightened up, but i cant find one single mark on any other surface and the fit is quite loose. In fact, when i took the trigger guard off the forearm almost pulled of with it.

Now, if the learned people here would give suggestions on re-bedding this thing, i'm all ears.