regarding No 4 and No 5 rifle bedding

[rondog]

Man, everything I read here about these No. 5 forends has got me scared to death to try and take my No. 5 apart! I'm scared what I might do to it, and scared as to what I might find too.

Information

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[Bruce_in_Oz]

Hereby hangs the catch with military rifles (and their ammo).

They are integrated into a logistical and administrative system that (mostly) works.

Military rifles are built to perform to a standard with a nominated ammunition set; ball as primary, tracer etc, very much secondary. Compare that to a commercial sporter: .22Hornet to .458 Win Mag, chrome moly or stainless, three action lengths, five barrel profiles, eight stock options, and then there are sights, and all combinations and permutations of the above.

If a soldier's rifle is not performing as advertised, it is placed in a repair system of spectacular size and scope. This is not your corner gun shop. This big gun shop only deals with a relatively tiny range of equipment compared to commercial operations but it has its own "pipeline" to the spare parts warehouses. Not only that, but ALL of the "customers'" weapons are "run over the pits" at least once annually, whether they have been used or not. It starts when unit "gun plumber" does an inspection on a problem weapon. He will swap out the dodgy bits and return it, or boot it up to a higher level facility if beyond his repair level as specified in the manuals.

These published maintenance instructions are to be followed to the letter; i.e. "if this, then that". Component "adjustment" is only allowed as per these instructions and, in these days of CNC, investment casting and injection moulded plastic, there is not much scope for that anyway.

So the nub is that our trusty old Lee Enfields are leftovers from a system from over a century ago. You cannot just write out a requisition for a swag of new parts for them and any repairs should be done as closely as possible to the original technique. As far as woodwork goes however, modern epoxies work very well if used correctly to repair cracks and splits.

Mr. Laidler's notes and references are pure gold, as are the technical documents posted by Ed Horton and others.

It is a bit scary; it is a bit "different" and they don't make them like that anymore, but it is worth the effort of doing it correctly

[tbonesmith]

So I read the article by Peter Laidler and did the job, and it's come up beautifully. Thanks very much for the advice.
Here are some pictures.
Will shoot it tomorrow, and if all good will peg it then.

[Peter Laidler]

Ah, great to see an old fashioned Armourer at work again. Just like we used to do 'em - week in, week out, weeks at a time on the test range, bruised shoulders and torn elbows. A pleasure to see TBone and I hope that it's an inspiration for others

Has anyone got rid of their Ishy screw yet? Let's all see the result...., but only if it's GOOD!

[Edward Horton]

Mr. Laidler

Something I have been curious about since I first got my hands on the illustration from the 1960 PAM below, it shows a maximum allowable clearance of .010 (ten thousandths) between the rear of the fore stock and the receiver socket for the No.5.

In real life practice when you worked on the No.5 did you allow the rear of the fore stock to not touch the receiver socket or have an “air gap” and let the forward section of the draws take all the recoil.

Or was this something allowed at this late date in time due to the phasing out of the No.5 Enfield from service.





In American English this would be called “Texas Bedding” with wide open spaces.

[tbonesmith]

Rifle shoots well, will have to wait a bit to shoot some groups, today was standing at 100, and I didn't have time to shoot groups beforehand. But it all looks fine.

[tbonesmith]

Just a quick update, I used the rifle in 200m comp today with some light loads of 174gn fmj's and the rifle performed very well, putting all the shots where they were pointed with the only major fliers being the result of a couple of case separations (This remington brass had done more than 15 reloads, and now it's dead).

[crsoll]

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Ah, great to see an old fashioned Armourer at work again. Just like we used to do 'em - week in, week out, weeks at a time on the test range, bruised shoulders and torn elbows. A pleasure to see TBone and I hope that it's an inspiration for others

Has anyone got rid of their Ishy screw yet? Let's all see the result...., but only if it's GOOD!

Had a go at the 'Ishy' problem, those screws, they look so awful, unlike the women that come out of India.

Put a 3/16" brass threaded rod through the hole and an enfield bayonet nut on either end countersunk into the wood, looks great and matches the reinforcing strip and pin at the back of the fore stock.

[martins8589]

Attachment 39664Attachment 39665Attachment 39666

Had a go at the 'Ishy' problem, those screws, they look so awful, unlike the women that come out of India.

Put a 3/16" brass threaded rod through the hole and an enfield bayonet nut on either end countersunk into the wood, looks great and matches the reinforcing strip and pin at the back of the fore stock.

I have seen a few SMLE's that have pieces of copper screwed to the drawers face where you have used timber to repair. Was this just a target rifle solution?

[Maxwell Smart]

I have seen a few SMLE's that have pieces of copper screwed to the drawers face where you have used timber to repair. Was this just a target rifle solution?

No; in the case of Lithgow rifles using Coachwood fore-ends this was standard factory installation.