Jungle Carbine "Replica"

[louthepou]

Hi folks,

Well it's been a while since I last posted here, it's been a rough year. But things are settling down, so I can take some time to do fun stuff a bit more.

I have been thinking about this project for a while. I had a No4 Lee Enfield with a shortened barrel and a drilled / tapped receiver. And, I've been wondering about the quality of the Jungle Carbine "kit" sold by Numrich in the States. A fellow gun enthusiast here in Canada got that kit but decided to sell it, and I was happy to take it.

The wood parts are made from No4 parts. The butt stock is cut to accept the butt pad, and the sling swivel screw holes are plugged. The recess for the butt pad sling swivel is roughly carved out. Besides this, the wood parts are ok.

The flash hider is on the cheap side. The pin holes weren't aligned (on the same plane). I'm quite lucky that Brian Leadbeater, a fine fellow in Western Canada, accepted to play with these old parts for me. Not every gunsmith would go through the trouble... but he's a milsurp lover like us, so thanks Brian!

He did a fine job at shortening the barrel to the Jungle's length and win the fight with the flash hider. Among other troubles, he had to punch the front sight blade in place because the machined slot for it in the base was too large. I'm willing to bet that part is "Made somewhere in Asia in someone's backyard shed".

After a bit of walnut stain, since this project fell outside of the "authentic" category, I decided to finish the wood with a spray-on acrylic. Just this one time I promise.

All in all, a fun project but definitely not financially viable.

Information

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[browningautorifle]

It does look sort of interesting. I think you might find the wood a bit slippery now though...

[94SRC]

Always wanted a No5, but after all the tales about them wandering of zero, I decided to go the Numrich kit route myself. All the woodwork seemed to be unissued re-machined No4 stuff.

The draws in the forend needed some careful attention to get a good fit, and the machining for the buttplate was so poorly done I bought a new No4 butt and made a one myself, (got one with a better grain match as well).

Had the same problems with the flash hider's oversized site dovetail. Decided to build up the site blade's dovetail with weld and file it back till it was a drift fit so I could get zeroed. The fixing pin holes were nicely inline though, just a shame they left the pins out of the kit ..

Like you, I also went with a gloss finish to start with, but used Birchwood Casey Tru-oil and red Mahogany stain.. Was not impressed with the durability of the Tru-oil, so when I needed to make a cheek piece for scoped use, it was stripped of with oven cleaner, stained dark Oak, and refinished with good old BLO.

Was well worth all the effort...Shoots like a dream, and not at all as punishing on the shoulder as people suggest..180gr Privi-Partisan out of a Nagant carbine, now that's recoil.