1st post! Ishapore 2a1 sporter restoration

[MosinVirus]

Hello Milsurps!

This is my first thread here, and I hope I fit right in. If you catch me doing something I shouldn't, please slap me on the head with a strongly worded reply, but also let me know how to correct what I did wrong.

I recently acquired an Ishapore 2a1 sporter. Wanted an enfield in 7.62 and wanted a sporter to give some TLC to. The barrel, receiver, bolt body, rear sight leaf, and magazine all match.

Dumb things I did:

• Not firing the rifle before proceeding with teardown
• Not reading articles, books, and posts here before I started

My plan is to:

• Fit new fore stock
• fit nose cap
• fit forward handguard
• re-fix butt stock
• fit butt pad better
• refinish metal to protect it (probably parkerize)
• obviously get as many parts as needed to restore to military configuration

Here is the rifle I got:











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Work has begun:

Broke the rifle down to all the bits. Couldn't remove the rear sight base, but was able to remove the front sight base and key.

Removed the remaining paint patches (mixed paint by the way) and de-blued the parts:







While I was waiting on the fore stock and other parts, I decided to tackle the butt stock:



Will be using a piece of walnut from the shortened, crached, and poorly fitted fore stock:





New Fore stock arrived. I didn't notice a problem right away, and began fitting at the same time as trying to understand how to properly fit it.



after getting it on the receiver and then watching some videos I realized that I got lucky. The sides are apparently not required to hug the receiver, so my gaps are not all that horrible, but ugly.



And then I see this!!! The stock is warped!!!





Off to steaming the stock:



And reverse twisting using leather shims under the opposite edges of the stock.



Worked!!! But the nose cap machining was actually done on the twisted stock, so the holes are off axis.... This makes the nose cap sit nicely while not secured, but the moment you put the screws in, it cants by 20-25 degrees. Here it is loosely placed on the forestock.



Butt stock re-patched:







Butt plate fitted a little better:



As I learned, the wood was supposed to be removed from the back side of the fore stock, so I patched up the recesses inside that I prematurely cut (not knowing how to fit the fore stock correctly)



Getting pretty good contact on the back side now, and the fore stock now fits tightly onto the receiver.



Starting to shape:





Constantly checking barrel alignment and making sure (according to the now-seen videos) the barrels floats where it should and rests where it should.





Nose cap slips right on...



Alignment is not bad:





Got some of the gun oil and grease out of the stock using the calcium carbonate / acetone mix







I think I understand how the receiver should be bedded, so...





Shaping the fore stock to match the receiver and trigger guard (yes, after making sure the trigger guard is properly straightened and has good contact).









And now, I am bedding the nose cap... Since I had to change the direction of the screw holes, and force the nose cap to sit correctly... Will update when that is done.


So... Please let me know what I am doing wrong, etc. (I have another fore stock on hand).

Thank you in advance.
MV.

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