Ishapore SMLE MKIII* - What's the Prognosis?

[deadwood83]

That has to be one of the nicest Indian MKIII's I've seen. Not sure what all the fuss is about. Wipe it down, oil it and enjoy it. It isn't a new rifle and never will be one again.

Thank you. I find it quite pretty myself. I don't wish to make it new so much as make sure there's not any active decay. Not going to refinish it, just want to convert the currently active rust to passivated magnetite. I was kind of surprised to find it blued instead of painted; and not redone with RFI marks instead of GRI post-independence. Makes the rust conversion a lot easier at least!

I'd get onto the split at the back of the forewood that would be a starting point seeing as its an RFI you could look at using a No.4 tie plate as I have seen MKIII's sporting the said plate others may chime about doing that along with repairing the split, also another hairline split going up the forestock near the trigger guard collar front may be nothing but always worth investigating.
PL has stated when making things right ensure you use aircraft grade epoxy when working with the woods.

The front crack goes about 60% of the way from the bottomwood surface to the front TG collar height. When you pout a straightedge along the crack and follow it back, it points right at the split in back. I'm guessing the poorly fitted (disintegrated) draws are causing the bearing surfaces to be too centralized and are acting as a wedge together during recoil, contributing to the split. I would like to repair it invisibly, so perhaps if I made a 'cave' under the wood surface hollowed out along the outer contours and packed that with epoxy and some sort of stiff filler (carbon strands/tubes?) it would work well. I already have some long carbide burrs from porting motorcycle heads.

As for the rear, I do not want to put a No4 crosspiece since the rifle says 40 and 41 on it. If it said 42 or 43 then I would be all for it, but seeing that next to the dates would bug me. I might be able to de-oil that wood for epoxying and then tie it together with an epoxy coated brass threaded rod of slightly larger diameter. The old wood will be a long way off though, because I got a prestigious stock to use/shoot while i mull over the old wood.

I think it's rather pretty, but I am rather certain the forend will require a veeeeery slight stain to match the rest.

I haven't built my steam chamber for rust conversion yet. I need to stop being lazy and just do it. All the parts are here. I even have more rusty things to convert (parts from recent K11 acquisition).

I really appreciate the feedback. As I make (slow) progress I'll post results here.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The bits bridging the lands are just pittinggoing all the way across.

Look more like tool-marks caused by the gun drill or the reamer picking up swarf and scoring the bore before rifling. Insufficient coolant / lube pressure out of the cutting head of the drill or reamer will cause this.

Trying to lap this out will excessively enlarge the bore diameter, and you have already noted some muzzle wear.

Just get as much fouling out as you can without removing barrel steel and start again. Stick with FLAT-based bullets of approx 174-180gn.

[deadwood83]

Hey Bruce, I appreciate your input as well as others.

I grew really weary of the other borescope. It's not really a buy one cry once because the Teslong (proven) is cheap. So I got a Teslong.

True to its name, Proshot Copper Solvent 4 removes.... Copper. Only copper. Literally nothing else. Ther internet wisdom said "it's great, removes all the impurities" Well... not so much. I wanted to believe. I really wanted to believe but well.... the pictures speak for themselves.

The crown is.... not really a crown. It is, however, a really decent arrangement of pits.


All the big globs of 'stuff' appear to be carbon or lead. Looks like carbon to me, but it seems like carbon would not glop up so much. I DO see shiny metal peeking in spots though. The copper remover appears to have removed copper. I am not holding my breath that the bore is shiny underneath the fouling, but only further cleaning will tell. The lands do look rather sharp though! Not bad for an old thing used hard enough to need an FR one year after its construction.


Ah, cordite. (throat). I've seen worse, not concerned.


Bottom of throat. You can see traces of rifling still exist there. It's not much, but it is there.


Chamber shoulder.


Chamber neck.


I recall the bolt was always a little sticky on primary extraction despite locking lugs passing the sharpie test. After seeing the chamber in better fidelity, I now know exactly why. This rifle is a collection piece and a range toy so slightly sticky extraction due to chamber roughness I can live with. I'll still give it a real good cleaning with nylon but I'm not about to try and lap/polish/hone/etc.

I think it would shoot quite well with a slightly aggressive recrown (thinking 30*) and fixed wood/stocking. I have some neway small series cutters but sadly the carbide inserts have end angles which prevent them from working for this application (cannot get them close enough together while maintaining pilot clearance).

I'll have to call PT&G to see if their tools use a live center or a dead center. Really hoping their 30-60* cutter uses a live expanding pilot with at least 2 contact surfaces.

Woodwork is on a brief hold while I am finishing my K11 project. K11 is going smoothy and it only required de-molding the stock and applying original swiss fomula with some rust conversion.

[Patrick Chadwick]

Those pics are a good argument for not buying a borescope! It just worries you but doesn't make the rifle any better.

Seriously, that looks like a case of clean...shoot...clean...shoot and see what it does. I have a couple of bore-scope nightmares (see "Pickelgewehr", for example") that perform quite satisfactorily. One is an original Winchester 94 in 32-40 that a bore-scope expert told me was only fit for a display cabinet. It shoots beautifully. Clean...shoot...

[deadwood83]

How many times did you hit and miss the 24" x 24" steel plate?

That has to be one of the nicest Indian MKIII's I've seen. Not sure what all the fuss is about. Wipe it down, oil it and enjoy it. It isn't a new rifle and never will be one again.

Those pics are a good argument for not buying a borescope! It just worries you but doesn't make the rifle any better.

Seriously, that looks like a case of clean...shoot...clean...shoot and see what it does. I have a couple of bore-scope nightmares (see "Pickelgewehr", for example") that perform quite satisfactorily. One is an original Winchester 94 in 32-40 that a bore-scope expert told me was only fit for a display cabinet. It shoots beautifully. Clean...shoot...

There's a whole lotta truth in that statement. I got it out of morbid curiosity, and so I could differentiate fouling from decay. No sense scrubbing the rest of the 'fouling' out if it's actually pitting and you take the rifling with it XD. I got a better look and the 'buildup' is just pitting. THe way the light was reflected by the mirror created the illusion of buildup.

Sometimes they have nice surprises too. I scoped my K11 without swabbing out the automatenfett and was greeted by a bore over 100 years old that booked brand new (orange is the grease and some copper in the grooves)



I now own a mini lathe that I am slowly getting into shape. trying to fit everything to within a few tenths. After that, I'm going to custom build an expanding mandrel (2 points of concentricity) and a bushing for my 30-degree neway cutter and put a bit of life back in that crown. Dave Manson only offers an 11-degree cutter and there's no way I'm putting a flat target crown on a milsurp. I may also have a 1-hp 8x22" vertical mill en route.