Lee metford/Enfield cavalry carbine restoration

[browningautorifle]

i think by barrel might be bad

Agreed, have you shot it for group yet? Use sandbags and factory jacketed bullets. Don't use old stuff, use new made...

[fjruple]

Often a worn or pitted Lee Enfield barrel can be made to shoot quite well with slightly larger bullets.

'303' is the nominal size of the bore, .311 being the standard groove diameter. With a worn bore, sometimes .314 bullets will work like a charm.

You would need to have some cartridges hand loaded. Even shooters with good condition rifles try loading with different bullets and powders to 'tune' their ammunition for their gun.

Hand loading for accuracy can turn into a hobby on its own. But reloading your cartridges certainly is the economical way to shoot the Lee Enfield.

So don't give up on that barrel until you have given it a chance to shoot at some targets and you can evaluate.

I hand load for these carbines, a lighter bullet and less powder make them pleasant to shoot.

englishman ca--

I have to commend you on your restorations of the cavalry carbines. There seems be quite a few of them in Canada. I have just a question on shooting the cavalry carbine. Did they have the same problem as the No. 5 MKI carbine with the wandering zero?
I also light load my No. 5 MKI carbine to shoot otherwise it like fighting two rounds with the heavyweight boxing champ. Again great job.

--fjruple

[englishman_ca]

I have shot the No.5 lightweight rifle quite a lot and have never experienced the wandering zero. Mind you, I shoot maybe 20 rounds at a time, not hundreds in the heat of battle. So I can't comment on wandering zero first hand, but some credible people insist that it does happen.

The cavalry carbine is no where near the same rifle as the No.5. The cav carbine is lighter and slimmer, thinner barrel, lighter Lee receiver. I think it comes up to the shoulder better and I like the open sights for snap shooting. The carbine has graceful lines for sliding into a saddle scabbard without snagging.

No.5 sights are calibrated out to 800 yards. Cav carbine is optimistically sighted to 2000 yards, the extreme range probably more for use for volley fire.

For target work I would pick the peep sighted No.5. However, I am not too keen on the rubber butt pad, which has a smaller surface area, and actually makes felt recoil worse.

The cav carbine with carbine loads is a pleasure to shoot.

[browningautorifle]

the open sights

Those older sights are magic to shoot...beautiful.

[ranger-cpt]

Hello, I recently picked up a very nice and matched cav carbine, but missing the hand guard and mid-barrel band. Does anyone have and idea on where to find one? Will a MkI barrel band be a close fit? Thanks in advance, Ryan

[englishman_ca]

The barrel bands that I use are actually rifle bands that has the shoulders taken out and the band reformed.

I did try fitting one from an smle, but they are just a tad bigger than a carbine band.

I got this one to fit only because I was making a replacement fore stock and added a little more depth to the front section. I fit it up using an original hand guard. So it can be made to work, providing that it is the non hinged style, otherwise relief has to be cut into the top of the hand guard.

So I experimented and found that I could reforge a rifle band into a close facsimile.
[/IMG]
As you can see, the bottom portions of both the rifle and carbine bands are similar below the waistline. The upper portions differ in that the carbine band is designed to fit over a wooden hand guard, and the rifle barrel band is designed to fit directly over the bare barrel.

What I tried was to reforge taking out the shoulders in the rifle band.

The band is made out of a soft cast iron. Get it really hot, it becomes plastic and can be easily worked.


The first thing to do is to open the band right out to get at the internal shoulders.

[/IMG]
Then iron out the shoulders a little bit. This also has the effect of drawing the band out a bit and making it longer.


Attention is made to the outside and the 'crease' of the fold is taken right out.


Once the band has been 'ironed', the clean up begins which is basically file work on the inside and out.




I mount a chunk of solid round bar in the bench vise and use that as a mandrel over which to bend and reform the band.




Not perfect, but close enough to be functional.


It is a lot of work and it took me quite a few attempts to get it right. Problem now is that I am running low on rifle bands. I want them for rifle projects, they are getting hard enough to find as it is.

So fabrication is the solution, I know a clever lad who does machining for me.

I gave him an original band and he copied it. These bands are fabricated by assembling formed and machined pieces and then tig welding them into one unit. Again, a lot of work, but this will save me from sacrificing any more rifle bands.

[henry r]

Again, beautiful work Simon and your machinist friend.

You must be at the point now where you can almost bring a bare receiver back to a complete cavalry carbine.

[englishman_ca]

It has taken a while to get my act together, but yes, I can pretty much tackle any project, now that I have gathered my resources.

Actually, more than once have I started out with just a stripped receiver that nobody wanted.

It seems that there is a lot of Lee Metford and Enfield carbines hidden up here in Canada. Most are modified into great deer rifles.
Some work just too well as a dogging gun (used by the poor fool that beats through the thick Ontario brush to flush the deer towards the waiting hunting party ) to restore back to milspec. I do live in the heart of bear and deer and moose country.

I have tried hunting with other rifles, but I always seem to come back to the sporter LEC.

[homebythesea1891]

If your able to address the mid barrel band let me know and I will be your first customer.

[Kiplan2]

Has anyone tried putting a SMLE forestock on a LEC trying to restore it to original LEC configuration? Does it come anywhere close? Have the band and the nosecap just need the wood. Not very good at working wood myself. THANKS