Long Lee Metford/Enfield rifle restoration.

[englishman_ca]

Many of my rifle projects have come to a bottleneck. I can fabricate my own wood sets, but the furniture to mount the wood up is getting harder and harder to find.
I guess that more people are interested in restoring long Lees these days. The parts are drying up and there seems to be too much mad money chasing the parts around. Prices have rocketed.

Nose caps and barrel bands are especially hard to find. So I gave a fellow collector a Rigby nose cap to look at, and he replicated it on CNC machinery. Sent me some samples.

The raw machining needs some hand finishing, but when it is fettled and oil blackened, it looks to be a passable replica.


An original Rigby cap shown beside the replica.

Information

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[browningautorifle]

This should work nicely...

[CINDERS]

#1 I agree, I think the time is fast approaching where most of what we require to bring back a bubba'd rifle will be repro parts as despite the volumes produced given the wars, attrition and just people not understanding what they have the rifles are lost for all time. As we are seeing now people are buying deact's to supplement the parts that are drying up what parts are out there are ridiculously priced a mag cut off plate can some times go over a $100 base line is about 60-75.
Last week I saw a NOS Mk III bottom wood go for $583/AU that is the way things are going. I started collecting bits and bobs for the 4's & MkIII's years ago and have enough to keep my small fleet going for my sons lifetime and his sons providing they look after them and secondly that there are gunsmiths still alive that understand the Lee Enfield line and how to work on them. Yes mad prices indeed englishman your right on there.

[henry r]

Nice work simon (and the man with the machines). Getting these things reproduced is a great step forward for the hobby.
So i would have one for future reference i bought a nosecap with the piling swivel lug groung off and another chewed up one with an ok lug. If needed they will have to be chopped, fitted and tig'd into one unit. (and it will still be wrong as it has no cleaning rod hole)

[Legion94]

are these nose caps for sale

[englishman_ca]

Not many made, they were needed for projects, another batch might happen if there is enough interest.

There is one left, for sale up on the Equipment Exchange on Canadian Gunnutz right now.

[Salt Flat]

Englishman, This is very impressive. Do you know if the machining data was derived by laser scan or by hand measurement and 3D modeling? Thanks! Salt Flat

[Bruce_in_Oz]

There are partial drawings for these things on the Net. Some of these appear to be lifted from armourer's "instructional / information" charts and thus often lack full dimensions and tolerances. However, even the basic data is good for verifying scan / probe data and will probably get you within ten thou of actual.

If you only need a few, CNC is best. Expensive; but if the control files are retained, more are just a phone-call and a couple of weeks away. For bigger numbers, investment casting followed by minimal machining may be the way to fly.

Finding the EXACT material is likely to be a challenge. Malleable cast iron as per the 1880s is not something you can find at the corner steel merchant.

The surface finish will probably be TOO good for many restorations, so consideration should be given to "roughing up" a batch in an industrial "rumbler", leaving them to rust a bit, cleaned in acid and then "rough" blued / browned.

The repros also need to be clearly marked as such, inside and out. Things like: actual "new" maker's marks, incorrect "crowns", wrong fonts, REALLY bogus acceptance stamps etc. Think: a "better" grade of Khyber Pass special.

[englishman_ca]

I initial and date anything that I fabricate in a discrete, usually hidden location.

e.g. S.Y. '18

I have noticed that as supply dries up, more people are using modern technology to make replica parts. With 3D printing and CNC machining, hens' teeth can be made by the thousands, all it takes is a lot of design, data prep and input. Plus the money tied up in the machines. $$$$

[Patrick Chadwick]

What Bruce in Oz recommends, is, apart from the marking as a replica, just what fakers do. And if the replica part is not marked - well, what do you think all the stamps being offered for sale are used for? Paper weights? When a couple of matching numbers are sufficient to turn a "parts" Luger into something worth hundreds more, then unmarked parts will soon acquire markings. Which is why they seem to be sold for a hefty premium. So unless the replica part is marked so as to be clearly not original, then it is going to mysteriously become "original" one day.

"I initial and date anything that I fabricate in a discrete, usually hidden location.
e.g. S.Y. '18"

That seems to me to be to be a correct way of going about it. I am all in favour of good, honest, repairs and replicas. But not of leaving fakers a loophole.