Good place for No.1 wood?

[ShaveTail]

Anyone have a recommendation on a good place to buy stocks for No.1 MKIIIs? I'm in the process of cleaning up my 'new' 1916 BSA (I'll put some pics up when she's ready!). Metal is great...wood is toast. Multiple repairs to the earless handguards, forestock turning slowly to oily mush as I work on it. Only bright spot is the beechwood butstock, which is in great shape...but I'm not a fan of beech.

Three choices so far:
Springfield Sporters DP wood (had OK luck with them in the past, but....)
Ebay (bleck)
A British DP rifle from Century. Weary about this one. I've been screwed over royally every time I've ever ordered right from CAI.

Am I missing anyone obvious? Many thanks.

Information

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[vintage hunter]

Try Brian at BDL here in S.C. They say he has everything. I'm gonna find out soon cause I discovered that a Bubba'b enfield I have is actually a No.4 Trials.

[Mohawk]

Liberty Tree Militaria in Maine. There is a guy on Epay that lives in Washington, D.C. who has sets advertised for sale right now. If You message him and let him know what You want, he can put something together for You...Cheers, Peter

[RJW NZ]

also ... enfield resource.com for links to everything enfield, plus springfield sporters and numrich gun parts corp for wood and all other parts, cheap too. Springfield often have new old stock english walnut fore ends, if you didn't do well with their used wood you might find the NOS stuff is nice.

Hi Vintage hunter, got pics? trials = drool worthy

[vintage hunter]

Sorry RJ not much of a photographer and even less of a computer wizard. The Bubba that had hold of this one was high tech, ownes a drill AND a hacksaw, has a couple holes it the receiver and a bobbed barrel. Going to try to restore it bit it's gonna be tough finding the parts.

[ShaveTail]

*SIGH* This is turning out to be a bit more involved than I originally thought. I bought the rifle with the intention of changing the wood, but now I'm a bit confused as to exactly what I should be looking for. Advice?

1916 BSA. Matching numbers, including a barrel that looks to have been changed in 43, if I'm right in that being a date stamp. Buttstock is beech, only mark being a sideways <-8 on the bottom of the wrist. Other wood is walnut, but doesn't look salvageable. Five repairs in the handguards, no ears. Forestock is walnut, but once I stripped it the wood started to degrade into mush from too many years in cosmoline.

I'm new to Enfields; what would a collector do here? Should I try to match the beech, since that's probably a field replacement? The main screw is REALLY in there and the plate screws are worn flush, so they are never coming out, so a buttstock replacement would have to be a whole deal. The plate has a tiny arrow and EFD mark; is that a part I should be interested in saving? Another problem is that so far I'm having trouble finding beech. Would walnut be a better idea for a WWI rifle? DP wood is abundant and cheap, but... I just don't know.

Even worst-case scenario wood replacement costs aren't that bad; I'm only into the rifle $125 right now. I'd like to do it right without going overboard. What would you guys do?

[bouletbill]

If it's going to be a wall flower, or if you want an investment , I'd say forget it. But ... if it can make a good shooter, go for it. You don't need originality to hit the target and have fun. The re-building could be a good learning curve . A smellie mongrel can still be loved, so long as it behaves.

BTW, the beech butt on a '43 FTR'd No1 may be a modified No4 butt.

[RJW NZ]

What are plate screws? not sure what you mean there ..butt plate?
Make sure your fore end is off when trying to get the butt screw undone. I use a long square shank screwdriver and a 10 inch crescent wrench, never been beat by a butt bolt yet. The butt plate screw slots usually clean up with an old screwdriver working as a chisel, and then I use a strong screwdriver tip, tap it into the slot, and get the visegrips or wrench onto the hex of that tip, sooner or later they all come free.
Otherwise, numrich used to have whole wood sets for well under 100, new made, they were color matched and a great buy. You've got a bunch of good options, there's a lot of enfield wood sellers around on enfield resource.com, ie sarco, don't get discouraged, and chances are you'll end up with a good shooter that looks great too, any chance of some pics, and showing the problems areas?
ps enfield resource is down right now, I'm chasing them up to find out why.

[ShaveTail]

I think she's going to be a nice little rifle when I get the wood sorted out. The rifling is sharp, the finish is very good--even if it isn't original. Would this be an example of 'brunofixing?' Stamps are all clear, no pitting, and the numbers match. For what was largely a shot in the dark I'm pretty happy with the rifle.






Buttplate screw: I've been trying pretty much what you described: channel locks and an old wood chisel. So far no luck, as the scratches depict. Not getting enough purchase for that kind of torque. Rather than mangle it I think I'm just going to leave the buttstock alone; the condition of the wood, while non-matching, is still very nice. I'll just color match it with some alcohol stain.



The handguards have multiple splice repairs each. The forestock I'm working to save. After degreasing I ended up with some extra bits. A piece by the front band literally pealed off and a chunk behind the trigger popped out. I've glued both with Titebond, which I've always had good luck with, but as you see it had to be sloppy--the wood is still so oil soaked that the first attempts didn't take. I'll re-evaluate after sanding.