Gap between barrel and receiver

[jmoore]

Since Theodore has a fine new rifle without dramas, it seems like a good time to explore this matter further in a general way.

I was able to round up a few loose actions, most of which haven't been touched since the barrels were removed. Almost all of these show signs of a gap at the front of the action body. One had good contact between the knox form face and the action front.

But what may be shocking to some of you is that several actions had no contact on either face! In fact some have quite the build up of crud on both faces indicating neither shoulder was responsible for retaining the barrel. Muffet.2008 has already commented in passing on the reason how this situation could occur. In fact, it makes perfect sense to me, providing a certain circumstance exists during barrel manufacture. Especially in a high production environment. (It also explains why many SMLE barrels are comparatively easy to unbreech, especially compared to No.4s.)


Some surviving actions. Quite a few were scrapped. These had bad barrels.


Here's a Bubba Special, now rendered down for it's last possibly useful assembly- IF a scoped action is needed. Note the lack of contact on both the front and rear faces after some clean up. Its matching barrel was easily removed.


Definitely no contact on the rear face! Thick gunk build up remains.


This action on the lower right is quite nice. But the barrel was shot out to a point that it's rifling was very rounded. The throat was washed out and the muzzle? I think it wasn't bad. Hopefully it's still about.
At any rate, it had contact on both the front and rear face. Barrel removal wasn't easy on this example. It's supposed to be a DeLisle project...
I had to cut a few actions that had this double contact when they just would not unscrew. The barrels were good, but the actions had problems.- Including one which had a small opening on the left side, exposing the LH locking lug. A couple were twisted so badly a bolt would not traverse.


A few more. I'm beginning to see why the subject doesn't come up more often. Even a 0.010" gap would be almost impossible to detect after all the dried dirt and oil filled the recess fairly permanently! It survived unbreeching and years of rattling around in boxes, etc.