Back to the Grind Cleaning Up The Newest Lee Enfield

Greetings and Salutations!
Slept in quite a spell today… didn’t get out of the rack until 10pm! Gretchen was up and running as she had to return the Redhead, but me? I got to rest which was a nice change of scenery. She then had to go up to her Parent’s place and check in up there, leaving me to myself!!!

And the new Enfield of course.
Which I present now:

Now as seen before, it’s a 1942 Long Branch Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk 1*. It’s seen better days as you’ll see as we go over it together. The stocks are in a wee bit better shape than the first No. 4 I just finished working on, but still has some issues wood wise. In particularly on the rear stock:

The problem isn’t as much on the right side facing, as much as the left:

Something found the left side to be ‘tasty’ if you will…
Those ‘dots’ are boreholes. To jump a bit ahead, I did (nominally) find what I think it was that did the munching:

This pic is from as I did the disassembly. When I removed the trigger/guard assembly, I found some sort of larvae corpse sitting in a bunch of chewed up wood on the barrel band.

That lil thing leads me to believe that at some point these were stored somewhere where the local wildlife could get at them… Anyways… to continue the overview:

There’s a few differences from the 1941 Model. Here’s the 1941:

The ’42 (top pic) is missing the bolt release that the ’41 has. That’s the little spring loaded metal tab located behind the charger bridge (where the speed loader fits in from the top). A better pic:

With the bolt to the rear, you can now see the little ‘tab’. To remove the bolt, you lift the ladder sight up, and before you fully pull the bolt to the rear, you push the tab down, and then pull the bolt fully to the rear while still holding the tab down. You release the tab, and it ‘pops’ the bolt face up and out of the bolt ribway, allowing it to rotate out, and then you can remove the bolt by sliding it all the way back and out.

The ’42 is missing this.
In fact, the receiver has a small ‘cut’ at the front where the bolt meets the barrel that allows you to rotate the bolt head out of the bolt ribway/track if you will. Again, jumping ahead:

That little notch cut into the front…
And yeah… as I took this thing apart, it was gross folks.
Truly funky and crusty….

Another ‘minor anomaly’ is the bolt handle. The 1941 has a chunk shaved off on the handle leaving a flat profile, whereas the ’42 has a fully rounded head. No idea.

Now as far as the rest of the wood? Well the longitudinal cuts on the 1942 model upper wood are exceptionally well defined as opposed to the 1941:

There is a BIG problem however:

That’s a GIANT honking crack running almost the entire length of the piece.

It’s not unsurmountable, more of just a pain in the ass, as the wood there is far too thin to use the brass pin trick, so I’m going to have to rely on good ole Elmer and his wood gloo.

The rest of the rifle, the nose and sight guard are dirty and finish-free, but serviceable.

The only concern I have on the front is the guard retaining screw, the head is reeeeeally worn (like I could barely get the screwdriver to catch and bite so to speak), so I might replace it with old/new stock, as the shipping will cost more than the screw, probably about $10.

The bore is really filthy too, so I have no way to really tell until I can soak it and scope it. Right now? Ye Olde Field Gauge worked just fine, so it headspaces, and the Field Bore Test:

The bullet doesn’t go completely in, so that’s a good sign.
Like I said, as it cleans up, and I test it, we’ll have a better idea.

And as I was tearing it down, I found that originally, this one too had the Brit-Black finish, as one can see from the now-exposed barrel, as well as that gigunda crack on the top wood again:

Another oddity on the 1942, is that there really isn’t any significant markings on it… like hardly any stamps, either Armorer Marks, no other identifiers. The only markings really is the wrist Serial Number, 14L1069 and the previously posted pic:

Now looking at the databases, this was manufactured in September of 1942 per the production run schedule. The interesting thing? The Long Branch Arsenal is located in Ontario, Canada 20km outside of downtown Toronto, which produced Lee Enfield-pattern rifles for the Canadian military during World War II among other stuff like the Sten Gun.

So looks like I got me a Canoehead Enfield.

Unfortunately the only other serial numbered part is the bolt, and it doesn’t match:

The bolt is of Canadian manufacture (the ‘L’ gives that away) but the 344 makes it an oddball. And speaking of the bolt, it tore down and cleaned up pretty well:

The only concern here is the firing pin spring, which looks a wee bit compressed. I need to recheck it:

So, it’s torn down completely now.

I’ve started doing the same treatment to restore the stock wood back to the same as the 1941 and I’m in the process of rust removal and general metal cleanup. My concern right now is removing the rust without removing what little is lefrt of the original Brit-Black finish.

I already know how I’m doing it, so no worries, it’s just going to be exceptionally labor intensive.

MY BIG QUESTION TO YOU ALL THOUGH:
Raffle it or sell it outright?
Someone said do a blind bidding auction?

Let me know in the comments.

And whomever the winner is will get it as they want it
Fully Restored like I did the 1941, complete with a new finish
OR
Leave it cleaned up but in ‘Worn and Torn’ status?

This of course provided that the sucker shoots mind you.
Everything rests on that.
So as I said, let me know in the comments.
More Later
Big Country