What am I missing? (No4 front band reoccuring issues)

[Peter Laidler]

It's been covered several times on the forum but quickly, stake punch a small step into the top of the upper band to correspond with the front and rear recess of thge top handguard cap. That'll prevent any fore and aft movement of the handguard

[Thunderbox]

I folks,


The No4 front band is too small for the forend and front handguard.

Now, this isn't an isolated event. It's a regular occurence. In this case, Even if the handguard is properly adjusted to the forend, there's not a single band in the four I have that even comes close to fitting. In the picture below, the screw can't reach the thread even if I try with all my stupendous strength. And even if it did reach, I wouldn't be able to turn it to tighten it, it's too far.

The four bands I have now are the milled types, not stamped.

Seems that, either I'm missing something, or longer screws should have been made to fit. Maybe the bands have shrunk over the years

Any tip to solve this one? Thanks...

Lou

If you are using new unfitted wood, then often the handguards are too "tall", i.e. the bottom edges have a surplus of wood. This has the effect of making it hard or impossible to fit the rear handguard retaining ring, and/or the mid band, and/or the front band.


Slightly "lowering" the handguards (I rub them on a flat sheet of sandpaper on a table top) allows the rifle to be assembled easily but with nice firm bands. Obviously you don't want to sand too much, and you do have to check that the inner surfaces do not as a result come into contact with the barrel. You also somtimes have to profile the channel for the mid band a little.



(If you are trying to fit that dark Pakistani wood, then you end up with huge drifts of sawdust before everything fits!)


To prevent the front hand guard from sliding forward, first you have to check that the back end tab (where the mid band sits) is exactly the same height and profile as the front of the rear handguard. If the rear handguard front tab is a bit proud, then the mid-band will bite only on that tab - ie not trapping the front handguard tab. As Peter reminds, the next action - apart from using a decent front band that fits the profile of the woodwork - is to dink a dent in the rear of the front band, so that the dent fits into the slot on the top of the metal cap and pins it in place.


If the entire forend is new/unused, you also have to double check that the barrelled action sits far enough forward to give the foresight assembly adequate clearance. In some cases (as with the afore-mentioned Pakistani wood), sometimes the back face of the forend (the part that rests against the butt socket) has to be relieved a little to allow the action to fit further forward.

[ROCK]

It's been covered several times on the forum but quickly, stake punch a small step into the top of the upper band to correspond with the front and rear recess of thge top handguard cap. That'll prevent any fore and aft movement of the handguard

Thanks Peter, worked good on one rifle but my Long Branch band is much thicker. I think I'll leave that one alone.

[Peter Laidler]

Band thicker and won't work.......... An Armourer would simply tap it harder. It'll work then!

[louthepou]

Well thanks for everyone's input! I ended up shaving a wee bit from the top side of the forend, from the middle band to the front end. It was just enough to make it work, and is not visible. Funny, I've often worked on shaping the handguards, and never thought about working on the forend - my brain works in a very linear way...

Thanks again,

Lou

[ROCK]

It's been covered several times on the forum but quickly, stake punch a small step into the top of the upper band to correspond with the front and rear recess of thge top handguard cap. That'll prevent any fore and aft movement of the handguard

Too bad they discontinued the hinged band. It made disassembly a lot easier and there would have been no slipping band problem.

[Peter Laidler]

Tooooooooooo expensive to produce Rock. War has a way of concentrating the minds of economists. The sprung bands have never caused us problems in the huge almost factory like Base Workshops. We'd punch the front and rear of the upper band as a matter of course.

[ROCK]

Tooooooooooo expensive to produce Rock. War has a way of concentrating the minds of economists. The sprung bands have never caused us problems in the huge almost factory like Base Workshops. We'd punch the front and rear of the upper band as a matter of course.

I understand Peter. However, they still performed the manufacturing operations for the opening in the handguard and the metal that accommodated the hinged band. A hinge seems like a minor savings. Sometimes economies bite them back such as the Mk1* bolt head release economy that ends up getting chipped, allowing the bolt head to inadvertantly pop out of its track.

They could have manufactured a hinged ban and refitted rifles later on, such as they did with the adjustable sights.

Although I sometimes have a struggle with that band during disassembly. I'm sure that armorers had an easy way to remove it.

I don't want to make it seem that I am being overly critical of the No4 Mk1 as I also have some difficulty with unhinged bands on rifles of other designs.

[gsimmons]

Remember there was a war on. Any thing to save time, labour etc. was tried or looked into.

[Peter Laidler]

Ah, the reason for the opening in the upper handguard cap was exactly the same reason that the magazine remained formulated for the cut-off. It was a redundant feature but HAD to remain just in case you got a batch of hinged bands. There's always a reason for these things, believe me.......

Another thing that I forgot to mention is that during production engineering, it actually costs a LOT of money to reform dies/presses/punches. That's why some things seem to go on regardless. Let me give you an example of what I mean - learned during the production engineering phase at Uni, during a placement. The MGB bonnet............ When the model change occurred in the 70's or whenever, the highlighted/pronounced grille badge was deleted from production and a recessed grill introduced. It was a cheapening exercise in reality but.... As a result, the little raised hump in the middle front of the bonnet was redundant so the MG company decided to ask the Pressed Steel body makers at Swindon to delete this feature from future production. You'd think that, well......... it really is a simple tooling change really. But just to change that tooling or make new to change that one single fgeature of the outer skin (no changes to the inner structure or strengthening webs or slam panel landing/locking mechanism don't forget) was absolutely colossal. So that's the reason that you have a 70's MGB with a bulge that does, well....., nothing!

Sorry to go off at a tangent, so hated by some, but it does illustrate the point