No5 Mk1 forestock fitting

[Alan de Enfield]

The collar length varied from rifle to rifle and the length was determined by the thickness of the forend, as the wood dried out (shrunk) you could either try and get it to swell back to original by soaking in linseed oil, or you adjusted the length of the collar to suit.

Nn excerpt from an old post (2008) by Peter Laidler on fitting the forend :

Now it’s time to fit the trigger guard and Screw, rear, tie, fore-end if you have a Mk1/2 or 1/3. There’s a good chance that the rear of the trigger guard will foul due to the height of the new wood. If that’s the case, then simply scrape away the wood inside its seating to allow it to seat correctly all the way to the front.

The trigger guard should not spring at the rear or front….., NO it shouldn’t! If it was meant to, it’d be made of spring steel! Now for a little tip. The COLLAR. You MUST have a collar and spring washer.
This is what WE used to do. Put the front trigger guard screw into the trigger guard and body WITHOUT the washer or collar. Reverse it (that’s anti-clockwise …..) until you hear it click over the start thread and tighten it BUT COUNT THE TURNS UNTIL IT TIGHTENS AND LOCKS. Say, that it’s 7 ¼ turns to lock. Now do this with the collar fitted if it’s now, say 6 ½ turns, shorten the collar, a smidgin at a time, until the screw tightens up at exactly 7 ¼ turns. That way, you KNOW that the screw is tight, the fore-end is tight between the trigger guard and the screw and you are not crushing the living daylights out of the fore-end. And if it feels a little loose in a years time, then you can safely turn a few thou off the collar.

Now there’s a slight relaxation to this rule. If, after a days shooting, a gap between the rear of the fore-end and face of the butt socket opens up, up to .010”, then this is acceptable providing that there’s no noticeable play fore and aft (there won’t be if you’ve adjusted the collar correctly …) and the correct bearings at the reinforce, draws, magazine well sides and muzzle are intact.