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I miss read your first post Fred, didn't notice the " match rifle" understand the Vickers bit now..... I was just thinking it was SMLE heavy barrel target rifle cut down wood etc.
If you know a dealer who deals with Walther then they will profile a barrel for peanuts buy the blank and add the profile, threading and cutting the chamber are the costly bits or should say more expensive bits.
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05-11-2015 05:20 PM
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First on the agenda: No.4
Second on the agenda: No.1
Third on the agenda: No.5 or heavy barrel SMLE.
We have the prints drafted for the heavy barrel variant (thanks to Nailcreek for providing the original barrel for reverse-engineering), it's just a matter of determining if there's enough demand to move a 50 piece production run.
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Legacy Member
Big Duke,
Part of the "draw" as it is to making regulated Enfields out of restored rifles with defects is doing it with original parts, to the best of the existing parts base. Doing a Enfield target rifle with a new barrel, short of doing a PH4 variant, just does not have the draw for me.
Project will likely not happen, as it seems the required Vickers barrels in nice shape are Australian Lithgow made, the true UK Vickers barrels on the market are all well worn. Unless I can find a nice new BSA or Vickers contract barrel, the project likely will never get done.
I would expect there would be more draw for a nice No 5 barrel, as there are numbers of recent No5 imports with shady barrels.
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Thank You to Frederick303 For This Useful Post:
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Advisory Panel
For a heavier barrel in a SMLE, could a No. 4 barrel be fitted?
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Advisory Panel
Originally Posted by
tiriaq
could a No. 4 barrel be fitted?
It would need some work. I think they index bottom up.
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Advisory Panel
Yes, that would need to be addressed.
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Legacy Member
Fitting a heavy barrel a la the Lithgow pattern requires a bit of relieving of the wood-work and the deletion of the "Inner Band". The "bedding " is a little different from "standard", understandably. Mr. Sweet's book has a lot of valuable information on the entire caper.
The caper of "opening out" the nosecap seem to have been something of an obsession with the "full-bore" target types, despite the Lithgow barrels being specifically made with the last 30mm or so of barrel having the exact dimensions of a "standard" barrel, specifically to seat the standard front-sight assembly. ALL of the Oz "HT" SMLE snipers have heavy barrels and DO NOT have their nose-caps "relieved": they seem to shoot OK with Mk7 ball.
If you have a stash of MINT Vickers barrels casually lounging around your place, I suspect their sale to an "appreciative user" will more than pay for a seriously good re-barreling.
Furthermore, ALL of the MINT, IN THE BAG, "H" barrels I have ever gauged, (and I still have a few), appear to have been lapped. MANY show distinct signs of "over-lapping" and thus "belling" of the lands at the muzzle. Whilst the relationship between SMLE barrels and Mk7 ball appears to have been a "racing fit" and still "worked" very well, bear in mind that Mk7 ball is now up there with hen's teeth and rocking-horse manure.
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Legacy Member
at this time and place a good used vickers barrel costs around $70 and a new Lithgow made vickers barrel as little as $100 and up to $140 . while the cost of a used SMLE barrel is around $70. new South African standard profile barrels go for around $140 ( they occasionally come up forsale). I dont remember ever seeing a H barrel up forsale this century, new or used.
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Legacy Member
Laurence ordnance in Sydney had new in wrap Lithgow heavy barrels in the 2001 to 2003 time frame. Bought two of them from him.
The number of "active" Vickers MGs out in the US of A is not all that great. That is why the barrels can be bought for not all that much. Because of US laws buying a DP MG or deact is out of the question, even for collectors. Once way UK law is better than ours. You can have a collection of real MG, albeit Deacts, whereas in the US those guns have to be made on sold action bodies to be clearly in the legal zone.
As such redoing a Vickers barrel into a match barrel is not that great a sin.....
Last edited by Frederick303; 05-12-2015 at 09:00 AM.
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P'14 barrels in .303 and 7.62mm can also be used in a No1 or 4 (or 5) as there's plenty of meat on them to machine to suit. I don't know how hard these are to obtain now though.
We had a couple of ex trials P'14's in 7.62mm that were used to ascertain the accuracy of the free floating barrel prior to their similar use in the 'new' L39/42
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