Gallery of Dramas. Broken Enfield Parts!

[Son]

I think part of the problem when examining these rifles after many years of commercial (private) ownership is we have no idea the misuse the parts have seen. A bolt head could have been swapped for tighter headspace but not properly fitted. I've actually seen guys take an OA torch to a cocking piece to "slightly soften it" so they could cut it with a file while "match tuning" their "deer gun". Things like this make failures both more likely and more difficult to attribute.

Ahhh, the oxy torch. Here's a couple of pics of the sort of things you'd be talking about- except these "mods" hadn't failed at this point...

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[jmoore]

I think part of the problem when examining these rifles after many years of commercial (private) ownership is we have no idea the misuse the parts have seen.

So far, all of the broken cocking pieces and bolt head(s -I've more!) were in a large lot of pre-1968 import weapons that never left the retailer's floor until the owner died some 20-odd years later. Obviously, what he hadn't sold were the worst of the lot! So, it's likely this stuff is more or less the "floor sweepings" of an armory that got crated up and sold in bulk. This surplus dealer bought mountains of equipment back in the day, and had a 10m square room full (meaning "piled up") of Enfields still in the late 1980s!

[Claven2]

LOL - 4 (count them) FOUR(!) D&T's to that one poor bridge... lol.

[xa-coupe]

Is it my imagination or have you found pictures of two of the rarest firearms about? The vintage left handed smle and the left handed swede .. only issued to left handed commandos for the raids on left handed germans ?
What annoys me is these guys are obviously military rifle club types and should know better. The only saving grace is if they were non matching. Even so ......

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Regarding SMLE cocking pieces:

From: Specification S.A. 462 P, Dated 14 December 1938 -

"22. Cocking-piece, "B". - Will be gauged for width and figure, position and diameter of keeper screw recess, threads, and position of looking-bolt recesses, The cocking-piece to be hardened from the bent, including the second locking position; it is then to be tempered to a spring temper from the head to the safety bent, the full bent being left a straw colour. The cocking-piece will be examined and tested for hardening and oil blacking or browning."

Note there is no hint of Rockwell or Brinnell numbers. The entire process relies on the skilled eye and sense of timing of an experienced tradesman. Not only that, but the standard of lighting was probably not exactly uniform in the heat-treating room. Cloudy days, night shifts, hangovers......................

[Peter Laidler]

That's an interesting piece Bruce. It's almost archaic now and as you say, just SOO subjective too. We used an old IZOD tester to test the body locking lug and bolt lug hardness at the big Base workshops. It was a ball impact at a certain load. Certainly no Brinnell or DPN. When they were doing the trials to test the suitability of a longer bolt head, they used a similar testing method. But as I mentioned, it was soon established that if a rifle had run out of CHS on a No3 calibrated bolthead in the gauge, inspectors, bolt, then the hardness had broken through or down

[Claven2]

That's an interesting piece Bruce. It's almost archaic now and as you say, just SOO subjective too. We used an old IZOD tester to test the body locking lug and bolt lug hardness at the big Base workshops. It was a ball impact at a certain load. Certainly no Brinnell or DPN. When they were doing the trials to test the suitability of a longer bolt head, they used a similar testing method. But as I mentioned, it was soon established that if a rifle had run out of CHS on a No3 calibrated bolthead in the gauge, inspectors, bolt, then the hardness had broken through or down

Ah yes, the wonderful IZOD method. I work with a lot of milspec UK kit and almost all of the old specs call for IZOD while here in North America most of the specs I see are based on CHARPY testing. Not sure why the British penchant for IZOD, but if memory serves the IZOD test require more sample prep and therefore always annoyed me back in the day.

Of course, apart from batch stock proving, most of our testing these days is NDE such as ultrasonics, LPI, etc.

[Peter Laidler]

Off the subject a biut, but going back to Clav and the ISOD testing of old UK Milspec parts. We still had this testing facility at Portsmouth Poly during our metallurgy phase and we often discussed whether the impact ball was doing just what you DONT want to do. Albeit that it only left a small but measurable crater. But in stressed steel terms, it's no more than another stamp!

Our Belgian (or spanish or even portugese) made Browning L9 A1 slides crack at this point too. I put in a paper......... you know the sort, 'low ranking Officer suggests' (and a Territorial/CMF/National Guard equivalent to you colonials and antipodeans.......) and, and, and onwards and upwards it goes. Anyway I gave all the technical blurb and suggested that since a new slide now cost more than the original complete pistol, these could be easily repaired by tig ( it's a bit more complicated than that.....) and even over-plated with a steel outer at no detriment..... I don't know where it went, it came back for a further comment once, in about 1989. Being an eternal optomist, maybe it's still in transit somewhere. But on the other hand............

GREAT thread. I wish I was still teaching........

[Rumpelhardt]

[QUOTE=GREAT thread. I wish I was still teaching........[/QUOTE]

You are. Your just not getting payed for it.

[P-07ShortLee]

Interesting photos. Out of all of them maybe the worst (since it's so common compared to most of these) is the one J. Moore posted of the "usual" split forend from someone's attempt to disassemble without knowledge of how to do so.

I have also seen bent and "repaired" stock bolts to add to the list (no pics).