Remember all those awesome black wood sets on ebay?

[RJW NZ]

I've been going over the rifles, hooray, in prep for a morning at the range tomorrow, my first in a year!!! Beautiful sunny days and cold, just perfect ...

Ok, back to the point, ... one of my rifles has a nice set of that no4 Mk1 wood that came from ebay a couple of years ago. I've never really sat down to confirm that it was set up correctly on the rifle, and its never really been out shooting since then either, so no harm done.
I discovered that there was zero up pressure on the barrel and I spent some time working to get that right, experimenting with shims and the like to see what did what to fix it. I discovered that if the main screw was lightly done up, there was a pond or two of pressure, but if I cinched the main screw to its proper tight position the barrel shifted to floating, ie no pressure and almost no contact at all. Back it off half a turn, pressure, tighten it up, no pressure, what thu?

What I eventually found is that the wood under the reinforce is a bit too high and is holding the front of the receiver away from the forend, so that when the screw carried a bit more pressure it would close the gap but lever the nose of the barrel away from the forend.
It's one of those subtle frustrating little issues that become interesting in themselves. The wood set is in great, nos, unissued condition but clearly needs some hand fitting to work right.
I just thought I'd post this for others with these beautiful wood sets to perhaps take a closer look at what their no4 rifle is doing. If you've got it assembled and the barrel is almost floating, but undo the main screw half a turn and now you have up pressure, the mystery is solved. The wood under the reinforce is a tad too high, It makes me wonder if this is to found on other sets.
Its also important because the angle this creates is just enough to stop the recoil lugs bedding smoothly against the wood, instead their edge is digging into the recoil lug/wood face, not good and a must fix.

just a mention, cheers

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[Peter Laidler]

To be honest, you have encountered what I've encountered all along. I have never yet had a fore-end that hasn't had to be fitted correctly to the rifle. They all 'fit' after a fashion but 'fit' doesn't mean 'fit PROPERLY'. Some just need a small piece of hand fitting while others have needed hours work. Some fore-ends, especially those with a low reinforce that need patching to build them up can take ages as illustrated by TBones work. This was a severe problem and big workshops had a special routing jig/cutters that would mill out the reinforce for a dovetail patch to be knocked in. Anyone notice a reinforce patch in a fore-end?

Then get one that's warped at the front end, past the lower band and it's scrap from the word go. We used to test for warpage by laying them top down on the breeching up glass (the plate glass sheet used to check alignment of the barrel with the body) and rocking them.

Yep.......... I don't think I EVER had a fore-end that went straight on without fitting

[Thunderbox]

Those Pakistani (?) wood sets require a great deal of fitting to work correctly - they are generously over-dimensioned. The barrel channel and reinforce under the chamber are very shallow, and do take a lot of work to get the action seated correctly. As the handguards are also very generous, I find they have to be sanded down quite a lot in order for the rear handguard to fit under the retaining ring. On most MkII sets, I find that almost 1/8" to 1/4" has to come out of the inside faces of the draws, simply in order for the cross-bolt to reach from one side to the other.

[RJW NZ]

Hi Peter, funny you mentioned that repair of s dovetail shape , I just opened an LB No4 1942 last week and found this repair in it, it was too interesting not to take a picture, I guess might be what you were describing, albeit a little loose in the joinery, lol.
Another pic for Badger and the steadily growing library.
ps I'm also sending you a pm too about something else.

[Peter Laidler]

Yep, that's the one. We had a jig for cutting out the dovetail. Done a few of them in my time too!

I'm not sure that we didn't have a gash barrel, that was spun between centres, with the reinforce milled to take a tapered cutter too. But that is exactly what I was talking about. We used this for new fore-ends with low seatings and used but otherwise serviceable fore-ends. Thanks RJW, that brought back a few memories

[newcastle]

In the process of fitting my No4 mk 1/2 with this turkish wood. Same problem. Had to trim a lot out to get it to fit. Haven't taken it to the range yet though so wait for range report.