1917 enfield sporter accuracy

[noro]

Hello All,

Just purchased a M1917 Enfield sporter very similar to M1riflenut's pictured in another thread. Mine has a full length barrel. No receiver sight, but a scope. Upon sighting it in with factory remington cartridges, it seemed
to be somewhat inconsistent at 50yds. Averaging about 3 inch group.

The crown is fine, as the bore. The guard screws were about a 1/4 turn loose (my bad) The tip of the stock contacts the barrel, as well as the barrel channel, but most of the pressure is in the tip. Sorry for the ramble, but can I increase the accuracy by removing the contact points and free floating it, or leave it alone and try different loads etc.?

Information

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[Calif-Steve]

Tighten the guard screws right now. Put a match book (the paper) under the tip of the stock. Fire 5 round groups. Good luck.

[bb1]

Slug the bore. I've seen them measure .312" with an orig. bbl. Is it spotlessly clean?

[Patrick Chadwick]

An M1917 should beat 3" at 100 yards with service sights.
Better with the barrel free-floated, but for that the action must be properly seated. Or even bedded.

At 50 yards with a scope, off a sandbag, it should make not much more than a 3/4" group. The previous contributions are correct, but the 50 yard performance suggests that you will have to go a bit deeper. Your stock may be warped just a tiny invisible bit. What follows may seem a trifle long, but it is better to do it once, thoroughly, than to make a quick fix that has not got to the root of the problem.

1) Improper contact along the stock plus 2) incorrect seating in the action area ruins the accuracy of any rifle. You will have to eliminate 1) in order to be able to check and (if necessary) fix 2)

By proper seating, a word I use to prevent confusion with bedding (with acrylics or whatever) I mean that in the unstressed original condition, the action body must sit in the stock without rocking in any direction. The trigger guard must also lie flat in the cutout, and not be bent when the screws are tightened up.

1) Hold the stock upside down in a padded bench vice. Place the trigger guard in the cutout and see if it rocks end-to-end if you press alternately on the ends. If it does, this must be cured first, by shimming or building up the wood.

2) Hold the stock the right way up in the vice. Insert the barrelled action. It should not rock at all in any direction when you press the action into the wood. In your case, it soundslike it will not, for the simple reason that it is resting on the fore-end, and is not properly seated. So you don't know yet if the seating is good

3) Reassemble the rifle and replace in the vice. Check the barrel channel by running a piece of thin paper wrapped around the barrel all the way from the muzzle end right up to the shoulder. There should be no contact. If you feel any tight spots, note where they are. Remove the barrelled action and eliminate the tight spots.

When all tight spots have been eliminated, replace the stock in the vice and insert the barrelled action. The weight of the barrel will cause it to rest on the fore-end, so press the action into the wood with one hand on the back end and use the paper test to check that the barrel channel is 100% free. When that is OK, and the contact is ONLY in the action area, use both hands to check that the action does not rock.

a) If the action does NOT rock, then the trouble was in the barrel channel, and you can reassemble thre rifle and try it out again.
b) If the action DOES rock, you will have to pack/shim/bed it. Because of the curved 3-D nature of the cutout, real bedding is the best answer.

When you have a rifle where you know that the action is properly seated (or bedded if necessary) THEN you can experiment with front tip pressure. Opinions vary on this matter, some say yes, some no, so the only advice I can give you is that you either have a definite upwards pressure OR a completely free-floating barrel. A "maybe" contact is bad, as it will vary according to temperature, sling tension etc. and you will never have a consistent point of imact over a long string of shots.

Patrick

[noro]

Hello All,

Thanks for all the help and advice so far. The barrel sizes out to roughly .309 which I think is Ok since there is some use there. There's no noticeable pitting. and there's quite a shine to it which makes me think the problem is elsewhere. Its an original 12.17 Winchester barrel.


The stock is a Fajen sporter. The barrel and receiver are tight in the wood. The black end however, has a ridge of about 1/32 higher than the barrel channel where it meets the wood. I would think this might be part of the problem.


The bases and rings are tight with no movement, but the guard screws were roughly about 1/4 turn loose (both)


Hope this more detailed description will help decipher the cause, but some of the problem might be me, being unused to scoped rifles. Which brings another question. Would the flinch be more dramatic with the scope vs iron sights?

[noro]

Hello Patrick,

As a further aside regarding your comments, The dollar bill test will not slide anywhere in the barrel channel between the stock and wood. On one of my other sporters (which was done by Flaig's when they were in business,) it freely slides the entire barrel channel. Needless to say, the accuracy is much better.

[Chuckindenver]

if your getting 3 inches or close, thats normal.
whant less then an inch? youll have to change a few things..
change.
bedding, barrel, and let the barrel chanel out a bit.
a good scope base, and scope will change things a lot.
redfield style base, and steel rings, with a {good} scope.
and i use the term good, with a smile, US made redfield, Weaver, Burris, Leupold ect,
tasco, simmons, BSA, Bushnell are not {good} scopes.
though they will work fine, they dont work as well as the others.

[noro]

Hello All,

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. Will be getting into it more in the future as time permits. At least, I have a great idea on where to start. Thanks again.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Hello Noro. Your posting of 23. Sep. seems to confirm my suspicions and answer your question.

Hello ChuckinDenver. Noro was getting 3" at 50 yards, not 100. That is not acceptable.


Patrick

[Chuckindenver]

that would be about 6 inches at 100
hard to fix via email, or seeing the rifle myself.