-
FREE MEMBER
NO Posting or PM's Allowed
Now here's a cuty, a No1 Mk3 in teak furniture
Nice, I wonder where the wood came from?
.303 Lee Enfield MkIII* Australian SMLE rifle | Trade Me
Information
|
Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current. |
|
-
10-27-2011 06:29 AM
# ADS
Friends and Sponsors
-
FREE MEMBER
NO Posting or PM's Allowed
Yep not a bad looker, I did see in the Ian Skennerton and brian labbuda book on accurising 303s a set of timber from vietnam which was made from asian wood. Teak i would most likely say!
Regards
Fergs
-
-
Advisory Panel
As I understand, the teak foreends and then later complete wood sets were made in SE Asia for the guys that became AIA. They are very noticeably heavier than standard furniture and required a degree of hand fitting and finishing.
-
-
Legacy Member
Lawrence ordnance used to sell stock sets in teak ready releived for teh Heavy barrels No.1. used to have one but couldn't find a heavy barrel. got rid of it, then found a heavy barrel (courtesy of Roger). Dammit. anyone know ifthey still have em?
-
-
Legacy Member
The thing with teak is that it doesn't really like compression on the endgrain, using a teak dowel to punch something will quickly split it apart. Has anyone done alot of shooting with these teak stocks? They'd polish up beautifully though.
-
-
A friend of mine has one set up and it's fantastic, I agree with the tendency to split idea, but this shoots just fine.... As do the AIA's in teak
-
Thank You to tbonesmith For This Useful Post:
-
FREE MEMBER
NO Posting or PM's Allowed
Never seen teak on an Enfield before. Thanks for posting!
-
How does teak weather after it's been dried and worked? Anyone know? Is it anything like Camphor? That looks good but it doesn't half shrink. I just have a funny feeling that if it was a good stock wood, then India would have used it as they're sitting on forests of it. The reason I mentioned the camphor was because that was tried in the 20's according to the OB procs.
You got any ideas about this/these woods TBone?
-
-
Legacy Member
Teak weathers very well and is quite stable as it is full of natural oils. It was the preferred choice of the Admiralty for the last of the 'wooden walls' of Britain. And after navy turned to iron and steel, teak was still used for the decks as it is a excellent non slip surface when untreated. HMS Victorys venerable oak timbers are being replaced with teak as needed and it is thought the teak comes from a Admiralty store of the timber left over from the days of empire. Teak is still in great demand for the decking and superstructures of yachts though the great forests of Burma and India are long gone.
I assume walnut being the supreme stocking timber is its close tight grain and stability in extreme conditions.
perhaps camphor wood stocks would keep moths away from wool uniforms.
-
-
Advisory Panel
The weathering and the stability due to natural oils are all well and good at room temperature, but how does it go when a steel tube through the middle of it starts to heat up? The true test of any stock timber is it's ability to hold zero from the first cold shot, through the warm up and then while hot. Not many can, and there are a number of old tricks used to minimise the poi walking up or down the target with barrel temp. Most are stable once operating temp has been reached, but my fear would be the foreend continuing to dry out for ages after, would shoot different every time out. Any shrinkage will do that.
Are the Vietnamese rifles fully bedded or floating barrels? If floating, it won't matter a great deal. Even on the much heavier No4 profile barrel, having it bedded, the foreend may not move the barrel much during warm upl. It could be different on a No1 with a standard weight barrel.
I had a foreend here when they first started importing them. My father, a woodworker for 50 years, said you could still smell the possum pi$$ on it- his way of saying it was green. His advice was to stick it away out of the sunlight for five years at least, then, if it was dry, see if it still fits!
I deemed the fit to be not good enough to work with to bed a barreled action into at the time- weighed it up with the risk of it not being stable because it wasn't dry, and sent it back.
-