Greetings and Salutations!
Busy bluing the internals.
Busy-Busy tonight.
Only thing of note was I ‘punched’ the barrel today. OMFG was that nasty!!! The ‘bleech’ that came out was a solidified pile of melted Cosmo and rust. Made a BIG stain on the garage floor (just to add one on there… why not?) even after I -tried- to mop it up.
The gas worked like a charm. I went through 3 bore brushes though. Not even going to try and recover them, not when I can get 20 for $6.
Then!!!
The Critical Party Challenge
Ran a check on the bore… the rifling was even better than I expected. Like NRA G-VG, leaning more towards VG. The Bore is pristine.
So of course I scoped it. Still got a lot of built up crud, but that’ll be gone when I’m done. I figure two-three rounds will blow out the ‘crap’ post-haste.
Oh yeah… I gauged it.
It’s perfect.
It even feels right. The bolt has that nice ‘crisp and brisk’ closing and opening with the gauge in the chamber, and cycles nicley. Sapper was highly impressed himself when he got home and tried out the action… He was like “Dayyyyyum! That’s exactly how a good action on a bolt-gun should feel!”
I concur.
So, for tonight’s job is to start the many pieces-parts and fiddly-bits of the internals. I figure probably by mid-next week I’ll be done. It depends on the receiver and the bloo-job that I get done on it. I’m going with the Birchwood-Casey “Super Blue 2x” which is supposedly better than the regular Perma-blue I’ve been playing with.
And if it looks shitty, I’ll get the chemicals to do a hot blooing, as I got the recibe from a forum about SMLEs I’ve been reading for refurbishment tips.
And so for y’all I took a pic of a ‘mock up’ of it…. sort of what it’ll theoretically look like when completed:
Mind you, nothing screwed together, just things clamped that could be, bolt racked, and parts set to give you an idea of what I done dood. That’s MUCH improved from it’s original condition when I got it:
Got a ways to go…
Ain’t no rush.
Nothing else going on. More to follow as we go, in particular the news as we’ve been hearing. ALLLLLL my focus is on this project right now, as you can imagine.
More Later
Big Country
From 1962 to 1977, the passcode intended to keep any trigger-happy members of the Air Force from launching a nuclear strike was perhaps too easy to guess: 00000000
So basically if you had 2 crazy guys in the missile silo, they all KNEW the passcode, could turn their keys and start WWIII.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14178895/america-nuclear-launch-code-cuban-missile-crisis-cold-war.html
According to Daniel Ellsburg, there was nothing to stop the .mil from starting WWIII during the Cold War. He was shocked to learn the Pacific Fleet believed they had permission to launch without direction from higher due to a memo they all claimed existed, but nobody had ever seen. They reasoned that if they ever lost contact with DC, they were authorized to launch. At the time, Pacific Fleet routinely lost comms with CONUS on a daily basis due to atmospherics. Read his book, Doomsday Machine. He said when Dr. Strangelove came out, it shocked the planners at how accurate it was!
Awesome work on the rifle, BC. You turned a terd into art.
Austrian painter desktops are fun when someone says that is a nice painting and I say the artist is unknown.
It would blow away some banana taped to a wall any day.
Itta so bad in Gotham, Luigi a kill a the CEO!
Did you notice one photo had no unibrow while Luigi has the Uni?
Word of yid tunnels in that area as well.
Bolt action, you have chosen wisely.
I’ve got a couple of the Forbidden Philosopher’s paintings in my home.
“That’s a beautiful painting!”
“Yeah the guy who did it was refused entry to art school, but he kept painting anyway…”
The lee Enfield is the pinnacle of bolt action battle rifles and you can’t convince me otherwise.
It’s a very slick rifle. That action really can’t be beat for speed.
Try a 30-40 Krag-Jorgenson, smoothest bolt I’ve ever worked.
Loading, however, is not on par with the SMLE.
I was in a 3 gun match and a guy showed up with an Enfield Jungle Carbine. I was surprised at how fast he could shoot and how well he did.
Very partial to the SMLE, but hanker for an M1917 Enfield. Maj Gen Julian Hatcher’s recommendation. I wonder if he ever investigated the Swiss rifles…
I have several M-1917’s, 2 are my truck guns. They used to be very cheap to pick up in pawn shops recently for under $300, bubba guns, I reworked them into nice sporters and they stay in the vehicles for field use.
My .375 H&H is a M-1917, hunted elk for over 20 yrs with it, dropped many nice bulls with it and a 270 gr. Barnes TSX.
I worked on a original P-14 for a friend recently, it was so shot out it wasn’t worth much, however the stock markings were Israeli.
Prices on original military M-1917’s are so outrageous they’re not worth looking at. I’m 70, remember when they were under $100.
What gets me about those older rifles is how heavy they were, and back then guys were a lot smaller, meaning they were humping a huge load proportional to their body weight.
“Best battle rifle”, not the finest finish, strongest action, most accurate. 10 rounds, the FASTEST action and good enough everywhere else. Best battle rifle of WWll. Set the record for “Mad minute” back around 1914, if I recall correctly. Still holds it for bolt action.
I really like the gun metal grey of the receiver. Looking good.
Heavy rifles? Heck yeah, but at least the extra mass kept it’s recoil from breaking the shoulder of the guys that got to carry them.
“guys were a lot smaller”
You’re just repeating a myth. Average US soldier in WW2 was 5’8″, today is 5’9″. (80 yrs later)
That would mean they were just under 5’8″ in WW1.(20 yrs earlier) and on that same reasoning, in biblical times they were under 4′ tall. (2,000 yrs ago)
I grew up shooting 45-70 Trapdoors, M-1903 and M-1, today they bitch about the recoil of a M-16. Need better muzzle brakes. What’s missing today is testosterone.
Word. Recoil can be a subjective thing. If you know how to manage it, you can make it work for you. At 5’9″ and 140 pounds when I started Basic Training, I got used to (real fast) to the weight and recoil characteristics of my M-14. I keep my semi-auto M-4 in the gun case for the coming apocalypse, but my bolt-action .308 Ishapore Enfield is close at hand, along with my SKS. Bleib ubrig, mein freund.
Awesome looking rifle BC! That cleaned up nicely.
I don’t have the patience and would hurry something that shouldn’t have been rushed.
About the gauging… If I recall you said it was a field gauge. What I remember is that on such rifles,,if it closed on a no go but not on a field then it was still safe to use in battle, but if it closed on a field then it needed to be re-head spaced. I may be misremembering but it was a long time back that I was told this as the gunsmith I used to check an old Jap pick-up a set of 3 to use on it. Go, No go and field. closed on field,so sold it for parts for more than I paid for it. You may know more, just sayin.
Awesome Restoration Job!!
Polite Golf Clap.
If only jobs that generate that much enthusiasm and feelings of accomplishments were more readily available.
It’s real hard (or harder than normal) to cold blue the Enfields. Mainly because they did a hot/burning oil treatment to the metal instead of “real” bluing on the receiver and elsewhere. At least that’s what I was told about my Normandy 1942 BSA rifle. What you need to do is make multiple bluing passes with (light) 0000 steel wool carding between starting the next bluing pass. Also, after the water rinses and drying, heat the metal up with a blow dryer (don’t get crazy…just heat it up) before applying the next bluing pass. You have to work fast since it is warm and in smaller areas than you’re used to with modern metal. Keep at it and it will gradually darken. When done(ish) put a coat of ATF on the stuff and put it in the oven at about 150-170F for a while. If it doesn’t look right clean the metal with carb cleaner and start more bluing passes.
The next step is to find the correct front sight blade to match the modern ammo or your handloads. Yes, 4064 is where you’ll end up with the handloads. There are sellers on ebay that have all the various numbered sights. Lots of info on the web on how to arrive at the right one.
And here ya go…for kicks.
https://usarmorment.com/pdf/303LeeEnfieldRifle.pdf
Appreciate that!
Coming along nicely. BTW, check your protonmail. Right one I hope.
Off-topic, but does anybody know what the heck has been going on with these big drones over New York and Jersey for the last month or so?
I just listened to congressional testimony, and they say they don’t know jack.
So, I guess that between several municipalities, local governments, state governments, and federal government, nobody has a balloon with a camera on it we can put up there and take up close u pictures.
Any of you guys have one?
Even better, I know we have the technology to take those things down, and look up close in person.
Not saying it is BUT since we and the British and Russians have been nuclear saber rattling UFO sightings have gone off the charts. Whomever THEY are, they are VERY interested in our nuclear weapons.
I doubt these are human drones because look at the videos, the aerial maneuvers some of these drones are making are way beyond the capability of our drones today.
It’s a mystery and since the government and especially the Air Force is silent on it tells you something.
The Pentagon denied US and foreign military involvement in, fer what that’s worth…
What’s going on is someone is demonstrating to us that we have ZERO air defense of our nation.
There are patriotic duck hunters in New Jersey, one of them needs to step up.
Then we may know what’s what.
Yep.
And our military has so much electronic warfare, if they wanted to take these things down, they could EASILY at least take one of them down. They gotta be complicit.
Yeah, it just seems weird that there are no privately made videos of these things up close. Meaning private pilots, anyone who can get a close look at these things.
One guy on a local news channel said he sent his own drone up to look at them but it wouldn’t function.
One thing we know for sure is that they’re not trying to hide, since they’re running with bright lights.
They are in Temecula Ca now too…
Looks fucking great!
Awesome!!…
Well done on your project Rifle! Looks awesome.
Few years back I gifted an Argentine 1898 ? Oddball 308 to a friend who hangs here. Snuck I think a1000 rounds to him aswell. He was an accomplished gunsmith, who loved those dam things.
My son gave me a 1939 Mosin Negat? Couple weeks ago. Amazing condition. Ordered up bulk ammo, shoots well, heavy and a-mile long. But it’s pretty cool.
My kid gave me back a “ Baby Desert Eagle in 40. Cal also. These Magnum Research pistols are tanks, they shoot like a dream, heavy enough to tame all recoil.
Love to hear how your 303 shoots