no1 mk3 crooked brass

[timbermoose]

my wife and i both aquired 1918 ShtLE no1 mk3's, both been sporterized. went out shooting yesterday and found that the brass didnt look right after being fired. if you stand them on the base they lean to one side or other. other sites have suggested buying new guns and throwing these away. i dont want to do that, they are nice and my wife has really attached herself to hers(plans to restore to its old glory) and wishes to hunt deer with it. i've read that it may be a headspace issue and easily fixed with a new bolt or bolthead. but them folks started sending me links to seller sites. any of you know what i can do to make these good, safe firing weapons? oh and i plan to reload.

Information

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[RJW NZ]

Please post pics, there's a variety of issues that can show up with ammo, some harmless and some that indicate a problem, so its hard to diagnose without images. Too loose head space can result in the cases being stretched and if too much the heads pull off on extraction, perhaps you have partially removed heads? cheers

[Peter Laidler]

To ascertain exactly what and where the problem lies, you need to get yourself a .074" reject CHS gauge.

Knowing that the gauge is an exact known quality, smear the base with a coating of engineers blue. Now close the bolt while you have your finger on the trigger and allow the bolt handle to close the bolt head onto the end of the reject headspace gauge. It won't close fully....., don't worry, we don't want it to.

Now undo the bolt, remove it and inspect the face of the bolt head. You might find that the blue mark is only part or half way across the face of the bolt head. This indicates that the bolthead face is not square to the breech face. That is your problem.

[timbermoose]

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pics are from phone so not best quality

[muffett.2008]

Good enough, interesting, as per Peters suggestion, but you probably will find the bolt fully closes on the no go gauge. Lets hope not.
(Queenslanders banana's )