in search for a scope bracket

[patper14]

A friend of mine, happy owner of a unscoped long branch T, recently bought a N°32MK1 in poor shape that has perfectly been restored in "as new" state by The N°32 Armourer on this forum.
Alas, he only has two repro bracketts to put the scope on.
None of these brackets allowed the scope to align with the bore, althought nobody modified the pads.
I think that a technical help, or a better brackett (original?) will be welcomed.
How can I adjust the bracket to have the scope centered (As I expected, the graticule was perfectly centered and I want to let it so, my problem is NOT to make the final adjustment)
Thanks for any armourer's help

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Peter Laidler]

When I've got a bit of time Pat, I'll elaborate on this for you and others ..........

[Alan de Enfield]

Posted By: Peter Laidler
Date: Sat 19 Apr 2008 4:56 am
I read a while ago about the trials and tribulations of pattern or repro brackets not quite fitting onto apparently standard scope-less No4T’s. Don’t think that it’s anything new because even fitting a real bracket to a mis-matching No4T could and often was a nightmare. And we soon learned that if you were tasked with the job, then don’t start it on a Wednesday morning because if you did, then you wouldn’t be playing sport in the afternoon……………. Not unless it was an important game or the Armourer Sergeant or foreman was in a good mood!
Changing a telescope was a simple job because the 1”central hole in the bracket was bored centrally to the axis of the bore and optically central to the bore OF THAT RIFLE.
But changing a telescope poses another question that was mentioned. Crushing the tube. The bracket and cradle caps were machined from solid, drilled and tapped, numbered THEN separated with a slitting saw. Hence the reason for the slight gap between the bracket and cradle caps that should be equidistant by the way! This is also the reason why the caps are numbered to the brackets. Oh, and another thing, I have yet to find a cradle cap that exactly mates to another bracket. But more about that later.
One problem that being ‘gapped’ brings is the ability to crush the telescope tube between the bracket and cradle caps by over zealous ham fisted butchers …., we’ve all seen it and cringed…... And it is for this reason that the cradle screws are called ‘TAPER LOCK’ screws. Because the morse taper actually locks the screw at a given torque and no matter what (within the bleedin’ obvious of course …..) you cannot over tighten and therefore crush the tube. These taper lock screws were a common engineering feature for this type of application before the war and shortly afterwards and were used on the Boys rifle and in alloy housings. They are mentioned in some 60’s engineering texts but not at all now. This inability to crush the tube is VERY important for the No32 telescope because where the cradles do grip the tube is across the erector cell at the turret and close to the ocular eye cell taper at the rear. If you crush the erector cell in on a Mk3, then I’m afraid that the only means of getting it OUT is destruction. And furthermore, if you crush the tube at the eye cell taper, then it’s even worse.
What all this is telling you is that when/if you strip the cradles off your scope, then clean out the tapped holes (blind on the left, clear on the right), grease the threads and insert. Tighten until comfortably hand tight and lock themselves. Because these screws were a one-off, they were VERY expensive and if my memory serves me right, cost over £1 each to make in 1978 when the last large batch was sourced! None of this ‘….grab a handful for a £1’ stuff here! And if you do see some offered, get them while you can.
There are a couple of exceptions to this rule. I have been told that the very FIRST bracket cradles were manufactured with simple but small diameter 4BA cheese headed screw head recesses but I’ve never seen one (small diameter heads I’ve been assured, so that you’d shear the screwdriver slot before you overtightened it). I have however, seen an L42 bracket cradle cap recessed and fitted with 4BA allen bolt heads but this had a mis-matched cradle cap. While the bracket was original to the rifle, it may have been that a broken or cracked cradle cap was replaced with this one onto the needy rifle as an obvious solution. One other exception was at most Base Workshops where a slave No4T or L42 is/was kept on site simply to test the telescope for its ability to stand the recoil in a test we called ‘fastness’. These well worn rifles fired 5 rounds with every rebuilt telescope to test it for shock on the Enfield rest, set for harsh recoil. And inevitably the cradle cap screws were allen bolts for speed and convenience. It was on this happy note that my own son, Robert, now a gangly 16 year old School Cadet used to shoot a No4T and an L42 rifle for a few hours each Saturday morning just for the fun of it ….., er, I mean, to test telescopic sights. Alas, those days are now gone but the ‘slave’ rifles have been rebuilt and tucked back into their chests and ‘saved’ from the big smelter in the sky. Rank has its privileges as they say...

No4T body machining
Posted By: Peter Laidler
Date: Fri 20 Feb 2009 3:00 am
Someone raised the question about No4T body/receiver machining. This is what happened, as related to me by Sid Harvey who was there and did it and Russell Wilkin. So it’s second hand and I could be wrong…………
When H&H saw the scale of the operation they were to be involved in, they decided to production line it and quickly established the most obvious fact ….., that the bullet went where the barrel put it and not where the body/receiver put it. On this basis, EVERYTHING they did revolved around the barrel… if you’ll excuse the pun. They utilized a redundant lathe bed and swung the barrel between centres and locked it in at 90 degrees from upright, using the backsight ears as the datum for this. Then a dial indicator was swung over to the surface for the front pad. It had to be FLAT and SQUARE in the VERTICAL/up-down and AXIAL/fore and aft plane. This flat – square – vertical – axial don’t forget was to the BARREL. If it was all of these things, then the surface was simple linished and the process started.
If the body wasn’t both flat and square, then a pantograph controlled milling cutter was swept across the surface and the oblong recess milled out until it was flat and square
But, looking at many, many rifles, it would appear that most weren’t flat and square. However, it necessarily follows that there will be rifles where they were perfect and were not milled, or some milled very slightly, perhaps just to eliminate a ripple or high spot. After all, each process, like milling takes valuable time and money
Then the process of attaching the unfinished front pad to the rifle commenced. After this was firmly attached/soft soldered/screwed, a shell mill cutter would mill the front mounting spigot and bracket mating surface to an EXACT depth so that the round bracket mating surface – that’s the circular surface to the right and surrounding the actual spigot - is now at an exact distance from an imaginary line along the centre of the bore. The tool checkers checked the accuracy of these operations every evening during a short floating break period
You can now see that while the pad on your rifle is fixed to the body, it is actually aligned with great accuracy to the exact centre line of the bore ….., regardless of its relation to the body. This is the reason why that you can, if you are silly, desperate or just unwise, transfer a front pad to another rifle ….., and the centres of the screws align and fit, it won’t necessarily be either square on or axially correct for the rifle. The same goes for the bracket…………….
A few thou here or there won’t make any difference on the bench or on your little home collimator but add up the accumulative error over 500 yards, when the bugger will shoot back……………… And that’s a different story
Clearly, this is all simplified and condensed to make it unreadable but it’s hopefully answered the question
No4T and 'optical axis'
Posted By: Peter Laidler
Date: Sun 22 Feb 2009 3:49 am
As a result of the question and answer about the No4T body machining and alignment of the scope, someone asked what I meant when I mentioned some time ago about the optical axis of the telescope being exactly aligned with the bore.
I won’t go into the technicalities but this is it, in a roundabout way.
Once your No4T is correctly zeroed, remove it and the bracket from the rifle. Set the drums to ‘0’ range and ‘0’ deflection and place the tele between two simply made vee blocks, front and rear so that they are not fouled by the bracket. Now, keeping the vee blocks secure, look through the telescope and note the point of the graticule against a distant object or aiming point (the DAP). Rotate the tele through 360 degrees while looking through and note the path of the tip of the grat against the DAP. The tip of the grat SHOULD remain on that DAP for the whole 360 degrees rotation.
If it DOES, then it tells you that the optical axis of the telescope is exactly central with the telescope. This is perfect and you need to do no more. Your rifle and scope combination is absolutely first class and as it should be………………..
But, if as I expect, it wavers, lets say off to the left, up to 5 clicks or so at 90 degrees and off to the right a few clicks at 270 degrees then all is well too. Similarly, if it is slightly low or high in the upright and 180 degrees plane, then this is perfectly acceptable too because there is much more latitude allowed in the elevation and depression plane for obvious reasons.
If your No4T combination is like this, then you know that it is original, as it should be and probaby, as it left Hollands. If it's not an original or a mix an' match, then whoever did it knew what he was doing.
I know what someones going to ask next………. And that’s a whole new ball game…!

[Peter Laidler]

Phew............, good job I didn't have to write all that up again. But it doesn't quite answer Pat's querie. Hold on a bit chaps and I'll detail a whole xxxxing morning and afternoons work fitting an out of sorts bracket to an L42/No4T.

[patper14]

Sorry, but I don't see Peter Laidler's answer.
Did I miss something or am I too impatient? I know that some technical articles have been posted on this forum, and I am unable to find them. I don't want to miss amourer's help...

[patper14]

The days are going longer, and I don't see any reply to help my brackett fitting problems.
I have of course a few ideas about adjusting a misfitted repro brackett, but some help by true masters will really be wellcomed.
Could it be more simple to fit an authentic brackett (and does anyone know one to buy) or can a repro be fitted too ?
Thank you for your help