Bedding the "H" Barrel SMLE

[tbonesmith]

Howdy all, here's a little job I've been getting into. The next project has arrived and so this on must be finished and moved on.
I bought a crusty old '41 Lithgow SMLE a while ago. It was all matching No's but the barrel was rusted out, and the wood was beat up as hell but thoroughly sound.
The metal was excellent and the action showed little wear.
My only thought was that I could get a great shooter out of it with a replacement barrel.
I had a good, used heavy barrel, and put it in, then reamed out the rear sight base, mounted and fitted it.
Now I'm bedding the forend in the same method I've seen used successfully on other No1 range rifles that I've pulled apart, that is barrel bearing on the full length of the forend forward of the centre band.
The recoil lugs were already fitted perfectly and the barrel naturally sat in the centre of the barrel channel. I just needed to enlarge for the heavy barrel.
The only tool I've used to inlet it is a smallish curved chisel/gouge.
I've blued the whole barrel and knox with bearing blue, the reinforce needed a little relief, but the rest of the action was perfect and there fore left alone.
The top wood will need fitting and I'll just tidy up the finish on the inside of the channel, but it's gone great, the standard muzzle cap fits perfectly, and I'll be extremely surprised if this fella doesn't do the business on the range.

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