Greetings and Salutations!
Man I’m tired. I didn’t get to the rack until 0400 this past A.M. I swear it’s addictive to be stripping this thing down and working on it… Last night was very productive. I got the majority of pieces parts and wood stripped off of it, and a good portion of today was spent scrubbing and cleaning it up.
The magazine was one of the first things to get a scrub. It started looking like this:
And no worries, that’s not actually a live MK-19 40mm… It’s my med-container that I carry my meds in when I travel:
I got it for like $5 on Temu or someplace like that. I got it to add to my inert Grenade collection, which also includes a plushie “Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch” from Monty Python’s ‘Holy Grail’ flick. It even has a ‘talk toy’ inside that when you squeeze it, it does the whole bit of dialog on the instructions of how to use it… “Three is the number…”
Along with my plushie M-18 Smoke and M67 Frag.
Keeping the doggos away from those toys has been hard ‘cos the frag and smoke have a squeaky toy in them, and they get all excited when someone squeezes either of them…
I also just checked and it seems that they no longer make the Holy Hand Grenade plushie… I guess it was a limited edition thing maybe? I was going to link it too… Sorry about that! So to continue. The mag came out well:
The serial number came out clear as day now
Overall it’s still pretty worn with a LOT of scratches where it was riding inside this thing forever and a day I’d say:
The section that stays up inside the mag-well is in fine shape, but as you can see, the bottom half looks like it was hit with some serious dragging…
SO then I started stripping off the wood and other pieces-parts to start getting to the barrel itself:
Then I got the top wood off:
And then the bottom wood as well…
When I then discovered that lo and behold!
SemperFi,0321 who’s a regular commenter here, was the one who said “Being an Enfield expert now you should know these rifles weren’t blued, they were fire blackened (heated and oil quenched) and painted with black enamel, as were almost all the WW2 British weapons.”
Sure as hell, he’s dead right. The barrel, which from what I can tell, has been sitting untouched under the stock(s) forever and a day… and is painted with the described black enamel:
And with this I also found that the barrel has a matching serial number as well, and the Armorer’s cartouche stampings when it was serviced:
It doesn’t have near as many as the Mark III, which makes sense to a point… This only as you can see has the 3, plus the bottom one which is the acceptance Crown Stamp.
This pic also gives you a glimpse of the filth I had to scrub off of it… here, let me show you:
I have no idea how long it was in Ethernopian hands, but man, they sure as fuck didn’t keep their shit clean… That’s all dirt imbedded in the cosmoline, with a healthy bit of ‘rust and crust’ as I call it…
That was all last night however… the trigger assembly needed to be beaten out of the weapon, as the crust was hard as a rock, and it sure as hell didn’t want to ‘come quietly’ so to speak:
I’m going to be cleaning that up tonight, along with the ‘fiddly internal bits’, and work on cleaning up the stock.
The “Project of Today” was mostly waiting for a new tool to show up. I had to order one of those loooong grabby claw tools for the butt.
Normally, Lee Enfields are supposed to have some leather disks stuffed up and into the butt stock recess hole to keep water and crap off the head of the BIG screw that affixes the butt to the receiver. On the SMLE, I was able to ‘hook’ the leather plug, and remove it with the long assed screwdriver I have. This one however didn’t have that.
Nope… as I found out, someone cut a corner and stuffed what appears to be some old rags or some shit up and in there at some point instead. The rough edges of the inside of the recess hole kept ‘catching’ the fabric, so I needed the specialized tool. It came overnight via the ‘Zon, and worked like a charm:
That was some nasty shit I’m telling you…
Last night I spent like an hour and a half trying to fish out that crap to no avail… and then I ordered Mister Grabby-Claw, and I got the job done is like 5 minutes after I opened the box the tool came in.
So now we’re back to the same question:
Refinishing the rifle:
As it’s now confirmed that it was originally painted with the Brit Black Enamel. In this case it was called “Suncorite”. Suncorite was a early to mid war process. But to be done properly, it was applied over a bead blasted or tumbled finish, phosphated and then painted with over cured and hardened suncorite paint. It became the standard finish on British weapons up until it was finally declared obsolete back around 2010… quite a long time when you think about it….
According to a lot of sources, that paint was pretty gnarly chemistry-wise, as in not environmentally good and being exposed to it was also not-so-good. It sort of reminds me of the CARC paint we used on our vehicles back in the day. CARC standing for ‘Chemical Agent Resistant Coating’… I swear the fumes from that shit were toxic as Hell… one commenter on 1919A4 dot com who was asking what the best coating to replace the original because as said: “I know the original formula was made with cancer and AIDS and slave organs and is no longer available…” that shit cracked me up….
Closest thing according to the various boards I’ve been surfing is believe it or not, Brownell’s Aluma-Hyde. Even for-real British Armorers have chimed in and said that even these days, when working on some of the older weapons in their arms rooms (like some of the older machine guns) they hit with the Aluma-Hyde…
So some of y’all may scream, but seeing that right now I’m refinishing the whole thing I may as well go “Full Retard” and restore this thing to like-new status.
Also I forgot to mention, it made headspace, so it’ll fire.
I might even go for a full set of ‘like new-used stocks’ for the wood. I mean this one is ok-ish, but there are signs of dry-rot and a couple of serious dents and dings in it. I mean I did some checking and as some of you pointed out, the value is so-so, even though it’s an all matching numbers weapon.
I mean I need to seriously think on this…
So I’ll continue to update you on the rifle as it goes. Like I said, a LOOOONG night and a long-ish day as well. I also have some news regarding the Trapdoor Springfield as well… seems I may have spoken too soon regarding that, and well… I can’t just leave well enough alone don’t you know?
Having a inoperative/broken weapon laying around here makes me ‘itch’ so to speak…
So that’s tonights fun and follies.
More Later
Big Country
With all that rust, ya gotta wonder where this thing was stored. Looks like a barn find. I’ve had good results with Evapo-rust but I’m sure you have your preferred concoctions and methods. You have a lot more patience than I, fer sher. You’re pretty much a firearms archaeologist.
Congratulations on that much progress – really interesting project. At least Ethiopia is dry. If it was humid, you’d’ve scrubbed off rust until there was nothing left…
Could the dents be steamed out or are they gouged and missing wood? Looking forward to seeing more. Coelacanth
Good chamber so as long as the barrel wear isn’t bad you may have a good shooter.
BCE, before you go and order new(er) wood, is the stock actually rotted? Keep the original wood if possible, the Brit armorers made many field and FTR repairs to keep them in service. I’ve seen many wood patches glued and spliced in.
Clean it with acetone (inside and out) and inspect every crevice. Does it pass inspection for clean wood or not? You can sand that stock down since most of those stocks were overly thick, that chunk missing below the safety is not going to show up if done right. You can steam/file and sand most of those dents/gouges out, same goes for a trashed butt plate. This is where the brass buttplate shines vs a US/Canadian alloy one. Losing any stamps in the wood is negligible since the dents probably obliterated many of them anyway. That stock can end up looking near new if done right, using a sanding block to keep surfaces sharp and flat. The buttplate can be sanded like new with strips of aluminum oxide (220 or 320 grit max) kind of like buffing a shoe and using thumb pressure. You can put a dummy screw in and hold it in a vise to keep it solid. Turn the original screw heads in a drill and file/sand the pits out. Don’t use buffing wheels.
Use those same strips on a 6″ mill bastard file to sand any dings out of the sights, keeping all surfaces flat when needed.
Then do your Aluma-hide finish.
Keeping a rifle in it’s original condition is fine, but when they have been trashed to this extent, sanding and refinishing isn’t a crime. These are not museum pieces anymore. Doug Turnbull has made a fortune from restoring old Colts and Winchesters that have seen better days.
Off topic. I saw the conversation about the fog on wrsa. Have you noticed the so called red tide bloom from Tampa to Marco island? Red tide has always been caused by nutrient rich hot stagnant summer water. It’s winter and we had snow in the panhandle! Somethings killing the fish and causing people to have itchy eyes, burning noses and scratchy throats and it ain’t red tide!
Not saying that you are or aren’t trying to start the zombie apocalypse. But WTF man, could you PLEASE hurry up. So I can justify the Flamweffen to the redheaded boss. I’ve used the excuse just 1 MORE Gun honey, I promise already too many times.
Make it a shooter. Fix it up to suit you. I’m sure it will be good in the end.
Obsessed?
Well, we need something. Pretty impressive.
Just a lay person’s opinion, but unless there is damage to the wood affecting safety or shootability then I would say a well cleaned stocks with dents and dings have more character than any replacement, and while you can be forgiven for finish restrictions for various reasons I would think the original stocks if useable maintain originality . If only they could tell their story right? Either way I am anxious to see the end result.
I say mod away. Like Philbin said in Phantom of the Paradise, “Make it completely yours”. It will still have the spirit of what it is, but some of your as well.
“This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
-Polonius