Making A Silk Purse out of a Sow's Ear

[fjruple]

I had a customer bring a 1942 No.4MKI .303 Lee Enfield that was in pretty rough shape. The rifle had a FTR by Fazakerley in 1948 and appears at some point went to India judging by the Large Wood Screw through the foreend. The customer had purchase the rifle on Armslist and was looking for just a basic shooter not spending a lot of money. He said he checked the headspace with a set of coin-type headspace gauges and it closed on a "field" gauge. I am taking it to mean SAAMI specifics instead of the Military Commonwealth Standard for .303. I checked the headspacing myself and found the headspace to be about .098. I believe that during WWII .084 was acceptable. I took the rifle to the range and fired 5 light loads through the rifle and there appears to be no separation of the case and the rifle was extremely accurate. I fired only one full power cartridge and there was a notable separation line in the case. The rifle also had a tendency to pop open the bolt during firing on two occasions, an event which I had never seen before on a Lee Enfield. I stop firing as the rifle was too dangerous to fire in its current condition. Does anyone have any suggestions on getting this Sow's Ear into a Silk Purse? I would tell the customer he made a bad purchase and to make a wall hanger out it but the barrel is like in new condition and is clearly a replacement barrel. Thanks in advance.

PS-- Before you start to Monday quarterback me. The test firing was from a test fixture that I have.

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