EY Enfield No 1 mk III only slight resistance on field gauge

[Peter Laidler]

You are pretty well on the nail with that Seaspriter. In UK service when the last EY rifles were inspected, repaired and rebuilt for War Reserve, the only mechanical difference between an EY rifle and the standard rifle was a relaxation in some trivial criteria and the fact that the barrel viewing and bore gauge criteria were slightly reduced. CHS remained the same

[Ben Cartwright]

You are pretty well on the nail with that Seaspriter. In UK service when the last EY rifles were inspected, repaired and rebuilt for War Reserve, the only mechanical difference between an EY rifle and the standard rifle was a relaxation in some trivial criteria and the fact that the barrel viewing and bore gauge criteria were slightly reduced. CHS remained the same

Peter
So it won't close on a .074 gauge then it is safe to shoot?

[Son]

Yes, according to the headspace check it it is safe to shoot in that regard.

Back to your point about getting interested in .22 trainers... if you did buy an aftermarket sub caliber kit and installed it on your rifle, all you would have is an ex functional .303 with an aftermarket sub caliber kit. I would suggest it's true value would drop well below the sum of the two items.
As a collector and shooter I can understand the attraction to the trainers, but it is the genuine military .22 models, not bodged up old clunkers. I know of plenty who have gone down the road of spending lots of money (albeit a little at a time) trying to make silk purses out of sow's ears when they could have bought the real thing for less than their total expenditure if they had been patient.
...just my 2c...

[Ben Cartwright]

Son I think you are correct. I have 4 US Trainers M2 513-T 42M(b) 44US and a Enfield I got from SOG that looking at the barrel it looks like it is not an insert but an entire barrel. I had posted it here some time back. I guess that will be enough I will stay away from the kits.

[Peter Laidler]

I agree with Son. I feel that an EY rifle is another of the authorised and accepted official variants of the rifle and collectable in its own right. We don't know if it is still wire wrapped but if it isn't, I'd re-wrap it and that way you'll have a valuable variant of the breed. You won't win any shooting prizes as the barrels were gauged to a lower standard but still a valuable rifle.

The ones we had in War Reserve up to the early 70's were stamped EY in the usual places and marked with a yellow EY on both sides of the butt

[Smellymarkfive]

Another issue judging from the photographs is the forend looks like it has the cursed split. It looks like the right hand side is well proud of the reciever and its started to migrate off the brass reinforcing pin. Could be because of the camera angle and flash but you might want to check it out before you shoot it again.

I had a .22 kit and I agree with the advice from Son. I later sold the kit for less than I paid.

[Ben Cartwright]

I don't see any indication that it was ever wire-wrapped. I picked this one out of the 4 they had because I had a .303 round with me and I tried it in each muzzle and this was tightest one. It also had the best looking bore.

the photos I am adding and I can take more, what is the "cursed split"

---------- Post added at 07:06 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:04 AM ----------

Another issue judging from the photographs is the forend looks like it has the cursed split. It looks like the right hand side is well proud of the reciever and its started to migrate off the brass reinforcing pin. Could be because of the camera angle and flash but you might want to check it out before you shoot it again.

I had a .22 kit and I agree with the advice from Son. I later sold the kit for less than I paid.

What is the split? I can take more pics - also sounds like there are not THAT many EY's and as was said it does have an interesting history.

[Ridolpho]

Regarding the potential crack comment, some later Ishapore forends seem to be thicker than their earlier counterparts and stand well proud of the cheek. From your side shot it appears the rifle has the usual "Ishapore Screw" as opposed to the more substantial cross-bolt seen on many dedicated Ishapore Grenade Launcher rifles. I'd be happy to have that one in my collection as is and, when you get it to the range, you may find it's reasonably accurate in-spite of the EY status.

Ridolpho

[Smellymarkfive]

If you take the forend off ( which you should always do before taking the butt stock off) there is a metal plate called the keeper plate that the butt bolt fits into. Often the receiver end of the forend can split there because that's a weak spot, and sometimes if anyone tried to take the butt off before the forend a turn of the butt bolt can cause the end to split as it distorts the keeper plate. The brass pin that goes through the rear of the forend was to reinforce and prevent that split from happening.