1917 Lithgow range rifle

[BushyFromOz]

Sooo........

I threw a central on today and tried to get an idea of where it was shooting. At 50 yards, some rounds would hit paper and some would miss.... this thing shoots like a shotgun.

My guess is that its shooting a 2 foot group at 50 yards. The reciever is so loose in the forearm that it almost rattles around in it, i reckon that after sitting in a cupboard for 20 years the wood has shrunk away form the reciever and its not remotely bedded.

[Bindi2]

more BLO a very good soaking

[RJW NZ]

I'd be afraid to shoot an action that was rattling in the wood, seriously. You need to ID whats loose and quickly, a shot with a loose action will do a lot of damage if it goes wrong, ie I split the forend, which drove back both sides of the wrist to within a couple on inches of my eyes (safety glasses are always on, thank you to all those who taught me that good habit). A common looseness for dried out wood is the trigger guard fails to tighten upwards on the wood.
I'm not sure if you have a warped front end, if it was me etc, tighten everything up with the handguards off, see if the barrel is straight in the channel, if not, its probably those shims that have shifted, as they can control the left/right of the muzzle position with shims on the left/right of the wrist face.

Otherwise, all those paper shims are good to see, the last shooter was doing all the right stuff to tighten everything up, I've seen two Fultons rifles with the mid band shimmed with layers of paper under them, a well known and a good trick.

[BushyFromOz]

"Rattling around" has a bit of poetic licence in it, but it certainly isn't "tight". I placed some paper in the foreend and dropped the action back in, the paper would slide back out with a little effort. It left som nice grubby dirty streaks in the paper where the action is tighter against the wood, onfirming that there i not a lot of contact gooing on.it doesn't appear to be touch the draws at all and the copper plates are are not making equal contact with the recoil lugs, they certainly sit at different angles to one another. Ill go with bindis suggesstion and BLO the heck out of the wood and get it to swell a bit, the copper plates could use some lapping and a cats whisker knocked off the R draw to even them up..

[tbonesmith]

Try looking at No4 bedding, and apply that here. There are plenty of good threads on this too. The rifles forend has been opened up to allow the barrel to float up to the front where there should be upward pressure to the barrel from the forend. Nb a lot like a No4.
By patching the draws with hardwood patches, you can re-bed the rifle without pieces of paper, and get a more or less permanent result.
Try looking at Peter Laidlers online articles and archived posts, this is detailed in those (in a sticky in the Lee Enfield Forum)

[BushyFromOz]

Thanks T-Bone.

Im not sure its going to be as easy as that, by chance i had the the trigger guard screw loosened and noticed that the foreend will see saw around the action, using the top of the copper plates as the fulcrum. When the front trigger guard screw is tightened it lifts the receiver away from the draws and leaves the barrel floating a ,=mm or so from the barrel channel. If you loosen the front guard screw and place upard pressure on the fore end behind the trigger it pivots back and lifts the barrel 4-5 mm from the barrel channel.

In either scenario, there still appears to be a gap between the fore end and the buttstock socket, in fact when the front trigger guard screw is tightened, you can see light through it (No idea how to close that up)

Perhaps filing down the top of the draws and copper plates may be in order? If its no good, i'll be chiselling it out anyway and replacing as per peters article.

[tbonesmith]

In either scenario, there still appears to be a gap between the fore end and the buttstock socket, in fact when the front trigger guard screw is tightened, you can see light through it (No idea how to close that up)

When you replace the draws with slightly oversized ones to be fitted to the rifles recoil lugs, that will draw the forend to the rear closing the gap between the collar and the forend. The front action screw shouldn't dictate the position of the forend relative to the barrelled action in the fore and aft direction.

[BushyFromOz]

The front action screw shouldn't dictate the position of the forend relative to the barrelled action in the fore and aft direction.

Perhaps its warped on the vertical plane, you know, banana like?

[BushyFromOz]

For interests sake i packed the copper plate with a thin brass shim and it tightened that up perfectly, moderate pressure to mount the fore end, no grap between it and the collar, though i still cant get the receiver to contact the top of the draws. Seeing the distance between the recever and the rear trigger guard screw is fixed, does this still mean the draws are undersized?

[tbonesmith]

Its not essential that the back of the receiver contacts the wood. If the packed draws take up the recoil shoulders nice and tight and the forend looks right I'd think its time for another range test.