Building a No.4 Enfield

[Gaz]

I *almost* have a complete rifle! Pictures and details to follow very shortly once I've uploaded them...

[ovenpaa]

Come on man, get them posted!

[M99]

I was recently surprised at the amount of "parts" for the .303 on eblag - you can get almost anything you need - including brand new wood etc!!

Mike

[Gaz]

There's a hinged front band for a No.4 on there now priced at £75. Wonder if I should tell the seller I picked one up for a few quid at Bisley?

Forgot my imageshack login, give me a minute or two...

[Gaz]

Presenting one barrelled No.4 action! The barrel is marked F53 on the chamber, which I take to mean Fazackerly 1953 production.


Looks like Fultons had to shim it to get it indexed correctly. Doesn't overly worry me as long as it shoots straight.


Proof mark under the muzzle. I was a bit miffed they didn't put it on the chamber, but then again, you can just about see previous civilian proof marks above. I'm also a bit worried about the location of the foresight mounting block - it does seem rather far back. When the furniture's assembled to the rifle it's very close to the front of the handguards/foreend.


Bolt head, complete with proof mark. You can see where Fultons managed to damage the nock's form on the barrel as well, I guess while torquing it up.


Proofmark on the bolt body. Oddly enough the proof house didn't mark the receiver itself, which could potentially cause dramas if I ever sell this rifle.


Two more views of the nock's form damage. You can also see where a jig or something's marked the receiver. Good job I'm going to repaint the metalwork.



Top view of the rifle, with foreend fitted.


Looking down the length of the rifle, with the foreend fitted. It is bearing at a few points, which'll be fun for me later on. I did relieve some of the wood in the barrel channel, enough to slide a piece of paper around and underneath the barrel. It was at this point I realised I didn't have anything to mark the underside of the barrel with, for bedding purposes, so that'll have to wait.


Close-up view. The barrel is pretty far over in the channel, as you can see.


View into the magazine housing. You can see just how far across the receiver sits.


And a final view of the assembled rifle. It's not quite finished yet but I fancied putting it all together and showing it off!

[ovenpaa]

Looking good. How far are you going to go with the bedding and how will you do it?

[Gaz]

I'll try and do it service-style, i.e. bedded as per the original armourer's instructions, rather than with glassfibre or modern bedding paste. That said, it depends how bad the fore-end is. If the offset is too much to correct with traditional methods then I'll probably end up using a modern method.

[M41B]

Looks very nice, hope it shoots as good as it looks. Let us know how you get on.

By the way just out of curiosity, what reason did they give about marking the barrel????

All the best.

[Gaz]

Looks very nice, hope it shoots as good as it looks. Let us know how you get on.

By the way just out of curiosity, what reason did they give about marking the barrel????

All the best.

I didn't mention it when I realised that the bill was marginally cheaper than I was expecting... I consider it a guilt discount!

I doubt the rifle will shoot to any notable standard. Although the crown's in great condition, about an inch of rifling at the throat's been eroded away. I daresay it'll look a bit better once I've been at it with a bronze brush and some Young's 303.

Away from base this week, but hopefully I'll be able to do some work on it on Saturday before heading to Bisley on Sunday. Sunday will be test firing day!

[Gaz]

Few things feel as good as firing a rifle you've built yourself.

Having spent all of Saturday night trying to get the barrel properly bedded (see earlier in the thread for why I was dubious about it) I eventually got it to sit roughly inside the barrel channel and assembled the rifle.

Come Sunday morning I took it to the Bisley zero range. Having bought a pack of 8 foresight blades from Terry Abrams (a thoroughly good egg, by the way) I was quite prepared to swap them in and out of the foresight block. I bought a set of Poundland needle-nose pliers and filed the ends down so they fitted into the reverse-headed retaining screw in the foresight mounting block.

This plan went to ratsh!t when I realised I'd left the blades in my shooting bag, which was in the back of a mate's car over at 600yds on Century!

So I zeroed it roughly for windage and secured it, although I wasn't hugely convinced - the blade was hard over to one side and I have a feeling I'll need to re-bed the rifle to get the barrel sitting centrally.

One thing that worried me was the first two rounds had pierced primers and the third was a light strike. I have photos of the cases on my phone camera, which I'll upload in a bit, but (to my inexperienced eye) they weren't showing signs of excessive pressure. The other 10 rounds after those were OK, although I had one more light strike out on the range. Possibly caused by a sticky/binding mainspring?