New-ish SMLE Project

[Surpmil]

Good catch by MJ1: the "E.Y." marking deserves a bit of looking into if you plan to shoot it much. LSA had a pretty good reputation for quality I believe, though 1915 would have been a time of vast expansion in production and things can slip or be "let by" in such circumstances that wouldn't be otherwise.

So was it stamped "E.Y." because the body/receiver was out of spec from new, or due to wear, or was it the condition of the barrel that was on it then that caused the stamping? I can see how in the urgency of wartime, with tens of thousands of new rifles coming off the production lines, it might not have been worth rebarreling a worn out rifle that would have been overhauled in peacetime.

Or was this a rifle that served three years in France and then came home to be inspected and downgraded to "E.Y."? But with the enormous glut of rifles after WWI one would expect that any rifle that was less than serviceable, particularly in the body, would be stripped for spares and scrapped?

Thousands of brand new Eddystone P14s were stamped "E.Y." due to being out of spec.

Information

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[browningautorifle]

It would also cover or delete the "EY" marking on the barrel ring too.

Good catch by MJ1: the "E.Y."

Not by MJ1...

[tsquared82]

Ah... well I'm currently fumbling my way through quite an inconvenience. After giving the stock a nice acetone bath... the wood appears to be different on each of the 4 sections. The most frustrating part is the upper-front hand-guard, which appears to be two-toned by nature. one side is light while the other is dark.

Is there any ideas on how to get this all to even out to one color? Any ideas for or against beaching the wood?

The only thing I can resort to now is to try to get all Bob Ross on this stock and paint it with various shades of stain to get it all to match. I'd rather not do that painstaking process if I can avoid it. That or just stain it and assemble it... accepting it for all the imperfections it has.

[bigduke6]

Try a wipe over with white spirit or similar, will give an idea of what the different bits will look like once linseed is applied, some have turned out opposite than I expected in the past, for some I,ve used Colron Burmese teak dye, this would bring all the wood to a similar colour, needed a long time to dry before applying linseed.

To be honest, now I tend just to try and match the timber before hand, oil it and let nature take its course......

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Most of the SMLEs I fired in "service condition", circa the 1970s, had a distinctly "darkish" (almost black), finish to the furniture .

Half a century of being handled, fired, drilled with and slathered in the "oil du jour" contributed to that.

Even after all that on-the-job "hand-rubbing" the woodwork was not exactly "smooth", either.

As for fitting the butt-plate: They are meant to be smaller in outline than the supporting timber. This allows quite a bit of "re-dressing" of the timber in normal service life. Furthermore, the proper "brass" ones can stand minor "adjustment" via a wooden or leather mallet. The butts were cut on fairly precise machines and the butt-plates were cast and finished to a pretty tight specification. The butt-plate is there to protect the wood whilst "square-bashing", launching grenades, biffing the Hun or driving tent-pegs, etc.

Absolutely NOT there to make firing with an incorrect hold less brutal.

[bigduke6]

biffing the Hun or driving tent-pegs

Isn't there something in the regulations regarding this brutality..... against the tent pegs.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The techniques for the removal of tent pegs can be a bit exciting, too, especially for the tent peg.

See: History Australian Tentpegging Association

[browningautorifle]

the removal of tent pegs

Yahoo!

[tsquared82]

Well, enough time has passed to where my mind starts comming up with other ideas as the rifle is still yet unfinished. I am going to go out and stick my neck on the chopping block to gain some feedback... and hopefully stop me from doing something "taboo".

I ended up having a new rifle stock duplicated from an original and is currently ( over the course of many months) being inletted for all the metalwork. In that time, i've wrestled with the idea of eithe rmaintaining the recent parkerized coating for a more authentic Lithgow Arms arsenal finish as it would have gone out as.... Or to really polish her up to a sharp and dark bluing and doll this girl up... seeing as none of the parts are original to the firearm.

What would you all suggest? Parkerizing (and further darkened) or a high polish blueing? IF I go the bluing route.... I've seen many images of an outstanding Durablue job that looks amazing and very very close to a legit bluing job. I might consider that for greater protection on my SMLE.

Custom Swiss K31 Rifle | 7.62 Precision Custom Firearm Finishes

What are your thoughts?

[Peter Laidler]

More words of wisdom, like a breath of fresh air from Bruce.