More Historic Weapons, What We Lost and What I’m Doing Next.

Greetings and Salutations!
I really thank you for all the compliments on the SMLE… I worked really hard on making sure that I did it “right” because as I said, I’ve always wanted one… for like years and years… I just never had the gumption to drop ‘real money’ on one, especially when they went full retard sometime in the 90s when World War ‘X’ rifles -suddenly- became like cray-cray expensive.

I mean growing up there was a General Store in Seabrook NH run by ‘Monkey’ Merrill… that store had been around since the 1790s? early 1800s? I mean the place was so old, it was, ALL at the same time a Federally Recognized Post Office, General/Feed Store as well as a Gun Store. It was his store that we’d see milsurp rifles in those BIG 55 gallon cardboard barrels for like $50-$75 a throw… Monkey had them priced by Country, with the “Eye-Tal-Yin Garbage” (Carcanos and what) and “Them Jap-a-he-no rifles” being the cheapest. Looking back however, I think it was intentional… which only makes me realize that beneath that veneer of “NH Bumpkin” there was a shrewd biddnessman in there…

Meaning that yeah, he’s selling Japanese Arisakas and Italian Carcanos for short-short bux…. However He ALSO was selling the ammo with a stiff markup! 7.7 Jap and 6.5 Carcano was some pricey stuff, and Monkey use to bemoan how hard it was to find, which is why he was “…selling them at a loss!” And IF and WHEN he -did- manage to score some of that rare and hard-to-find ammo, he sold it at a premium…

Which I’m now thinking the Ole Boy probably had cases and cases, if not a Connex full of that shit hidden away some where… His US Rifles he was fair about, as he also was with the ‘regularly selling hunting rounds’ which back then in NH was 30-30 Winchester and 30-06. .308 wasn’t a thing yet, and ARs were just beginning to be discovered… I mean case in point:

That’s an ad I found to show Gretchen, ‘cos she did NOT believe me when I told her that A) You could order guns through the mail and B) They be cheaper than dirt.

ANOTHER thing the Boomers had to their advantage.
Dammit.
This ad was from 1961 according to the pager I found it on… MY Enfield is second from the bottom, left side.

$9.95

Oh my aching ass.
Talk about unfair.
I even found ads selling Boy’s Anti-Tank .55cal Antitank rifles:

The Boy’s was a British Anti-Armor .55cal single shot bolt action rifle of hysterical recoil. It was meant to take on First Generation tanks, and was quickly outmatched by tank development of the time…

Notably, the Marine Raiders tried them out, and they were used on the Makin Island Raid in 1942. In fact there’s a strong possibility that the Boys accounted for maybe one if not two Japanese Seaplane shoot-downs. Per the Wiki (and other sources): “At 13:30, 12 Japanese planes, including two flying boats, arrived over Makin. The flying boats, carrying reinforcements for the Japanese garrison, attempted to land in the lagoon but were met with machine gun, rifle and Boys anti-tank rifle fire from the Raiders. One plane crashed, and the other burst into flames. The remaining planes bombed and strafed but inflicted no American casualties.” In fact in WEB Griffin’s series “The Corps” the shoot-down is described and attributed to the baby brother of the central character, Ken McCoy.

Yeah…
Gen X and ALL generations after the Boomers got utterly fucked in our ability to procure weapons… ANOTHER ad:

STG-44 for $39.99
Wow…
Crazy that right?
Never mind the Browning .303 Aircraft Weapon for $75.00 shown on the lower right… because below that they have listed the Browning M1917 with Tripod. For $150.00 That’d be this:

Who was who said “We wuz robbed!”
No joke.

So besides me whining about how we got utterly fucked out of our inheritance (i.e. a plethora of easily gotten fully automatic machineguns) I got two things to discuss. One is a show and tell, and the other is another upcoming project.

The Show and Tell is in response to my inquiring about the Duracoat rifle ‘stuff’… is it a paint? Is it a ‘coating?’ Tough call. But either way, I got sent some pix of Berglander’s own experience with using it. He had a Czechoslovakian VZ24 which was a Czech derivative of the German Gewehr 98 Mauser, which was the German’s standard bolt action rifle. They made them from 1924 until 1942. It fired, depending on the year of manufacture, the 7.92×57mm Mauser, 7×57mm Mauser, 7.65×53mm Argentine respectively.

He did his restoration, and used the SOCOM Blue color… which was recommended to him… he thought, as I did as well, that the name sounded gay AF. However he used it, and these are his results:

Yeah, like I told him “That’s Purty!!!”
That coating came out rather well… enough so that I’d use it no problem. In fact depending on how the current coat(s) on the Lee Enfield work out, needless to say I’m going to positively have to go with that Duracoat stuff…

Pic #2 looking down onto the top of the bolt and receiver is particularly beautiful. The only thing about the coating is IMO is it lacks the individuality that the bluing acquires… the wear marks of long service. Not sure that if over time that wears like the bluing can, but if it does, then even better and yeah, what the Hell…

So Kudos to you Bro. Well done.

Which then brings me to the upcoming project. Now this is a new project. I’m still doing the Hydro-Dip of the 1911. That’s for my own learning curve, as well as yours, as not many people know HOW to do it, and I haven’t myself, so it’ll be a steep learning curve for us all, and why not? You get to learn and be entertained by my retarded attempts at gunsmithing, and I get to try out new techniques and processes.

Anywho. The new project is courtesy of ScouterGreg. He’s a regular commenter here, as well as at MANY of the other Dissident Blogosphere. I’ve actually met with and dined with him and his lovely Frau, and he’s a great guy and major supporter of this place, as well as a good shoulder to ‘bitch on’ during our occasional calls, as I generally do not cry LOL.

Well I got a call this A.M. whilst lazing in the rack… Seems he’s got a rifle he wants me to look at, refurb and do to it what I did to the Lee Enfield. His Dad and he bought this thing Eons Ago, when Dinosaurs still roamed the Earth (hence the need for such a cannon that I’m about to reveal) and they only fired it once where it, and Greg experienced a chamber head and case separation and blowout.

Nothing catastrophic as far as he knows.
A quick history lesson follows

See, a lot of these older rifles?
They were designed and built in the ‘in-between times’ during the transition from brass-cased Black Powder to Smokeless ‘modern’ Powder. The US DotMil stopped using Black Powder around the turn of the century. The US Army first adopted smokeless powder when they started using the 30–40 Krag Rifle in 1892.

The Krag itself had this weird side-feed mag, but we’ll go into that sometime maybe in another post… moving on…

Black powder rifles continued in use through the Spanish American War in 1898, and stopped using it around 1903, when the Springfield M1903 was introduced. The thing is, smokeless rifle powder is waaay stronger than the old black powder. So rifles tended during this timeframe to be OVER Engineered or else!

And as a “just in case” a LOT of the older/earliest rifles had Receiver Holes put into them. This was to allow the gas to vent out rather than allow the chamber to blow the fuck up. A video here provides an EXCELLENT overview:

My own Lee Enfield, as I said has these holes:

When I first saw them, I freaked.
I thought they were ‘demil’ (demilitarization) holes. A little research disabused me of that (Thank God!)

So, the unviel:

It’s a Spanish Model 1893 Mauser.
The first rifle in the world with a built-in 5 round internal box magazine, and designed by Paul Mauser himself. It’s been around a long minute. LOTS of wars… it’s the Great-Great Granddaddy of the Gewehr 98 and Kar98 of German World War 2 fame.

He isn’t sure of ‘the why’ of what happened… just that the cartridge case ruptured completely and ALL the gasses blew out of the hole. He said he got a bad burn/scorch mark on his left supporting arm, and a face full of fumes, smoke and heat. I suppose if that happened to me at 14 or to MY spawn at 14, I’d have done what they did, which is oil it up, throw it in the back of the safe and fuggetaboutit.

He told me over the years that he thinks it’s a headspace issue. I told him I’ll work my Voodoo Gunsmithing Magic and see what we got, while also restoring it and doing a “follow the bouncing ball” set of posts… I did NOT expect him to tell me to keep it when I’m done.

I’m honored by the generosity.

And Hell, I’ve had at least two to three people email me telling me they want me to do a SMLE for them, I’ll say this: I just might. My response is to say “let me check the laws again on this” just so’s I do not run afoul of the fucking ATF. I’m pretty sure I can do ALL the gunsmithing I want All. Day. Long.

It’s when I have to BUY the serial numbered item that I might run into trouble. Like I said, I’m not saying -no- but let me look into it. I’m also looking into doing a C&R License either way… that would eliminate a LOT of hassle, especially since I seem to be leaning into the Pre-and Post War C&R Rifle restoration game.

So let me know your thoughts.
The last one here for the night BTW:
I’ve already bought a HUGE amount of ammo from SG Ammunition. One does NOT acquire such vast personal stocks of 5.56mm nor 7.62 both 51 and 39 without having them bookmarked. My problem is that I didn’t want to pay for shipping ONLY 20 rounds of ammunition to the Casa. I’m nowhere ready to buy ‘in bulk’ until I know for certain that the Lee Enfield isn’t going to ‘grenade’ on me. Gauging and all, I still have to make absolutely sure that this thing doesn’t have a ‘hidden defect’ that I didn’t detect.

So in this case and after a lot of Ammoseek checks, the cheapest was a $17 box of Privi Partizan 180gn FMJ. Shipping was a flat rate of $12. From AEAmmo dot com. One of y’all even told me about it. Even then, part of me, and from my research from the LE Boards is that I want to modify the ammo right off the bat.

One of the guys on there said the best way to test these rifles is to start with a 1/2 to 3/4 charge of powder. The rationale being that even today, OUR smokeless powder is WAY stronger than the stuff they were making and running in the 1920s and 1930s. The nitrocellulose these days is crazy-strong. So the idea being (if you don’t necessarily want to destroy your rifle right off the bat) is to take some brand new rounds, pull the bullet, pour out the powder, and remeasure and reload.

Work your way up…
Make sure as you go, you watch the Receiver Holes for excessive smoke… if you start seeing it, then you know you’re on the ‘ragged edge’ and should make note. If you manage to work your way up to ‘untouched factory rounds’ with no issues, then congrats, you’ve got a fully operational rifle.

My rifle is a bit of an oddball manufacturing time-wise.
Great Britain was broke as a joke Post WW1. ZERO money. Like NOTHING for defense or the DotMil. This is why there’s an utter paucity of Lee Enfields made after 1918/1919 up until 1939… which is when MINE was made. MINE has a very low serial number, matching numbers (outside of the missing bolt) and the same. exact. armorer’s. cartouche on it, which tells me mine might have been one of the earlier 1939 made rifles. Post ’39? THAT is when they rolled them out by the bushel…

My Wild Ass Guess?
This one was made, and racked in a deep storage depot, and then forgotten about until it was checked on a regular basis. I’ve tried to find out that timeframe, but to no avail. I know for certain that here in the states, each DotMil unit needs to have the weapons in the arms room gauge certified annually. AR 750-1, Army Material Maintenance Policy states this implicitly.

Got me a hunch, considering how pristine the barrel, bore and bore throat appear to be, this was in storage until someone shipped it off to the Wastes of Ethernopia, where it sat, rusting and forgotten until I got it.

So yeah, I love a Happy Ending to a Good Rifle Story
More Later
Big Country