Fearless posted:

Are you ready for something eye-wateringly boring?

I was directed to share my summer project here in the Scale Models thread. In the winter, I build wooden models of sailing ships. In the spring, summer and fall, I repair, restore and shoot old firearms. This summer I was able to get my hands on a demilitarized 1918 Lee Enfield No. 1, Mk. III* rifle (also known as the SMLE) and decided that it was a prime donor for parts for a restoration project. "Demilitarized" in this context means a rifle that has been made entirely safe, usually for drill or display purposes, by welding up parts of the receiver, removing or grinding down important parts of the action and generally ensuring that it cannot easily be returned to use.



This is the rifle in question. Not immediately visible in the picture are welds that secure the magazine to the trigger guard, two welds securing the bolt to the receiver, a ground down cocking knob () and a cut off firing pin. Even if one was to carefully grind out all of those welds, the heat that went into the receiver and bolt body from the process have altered the crystalline structure of the steel and made it far more hard and brittle than it was ever intended to be. The Lee Enfield design involves a semi-flexible bolt that locks up when closed at the back rather than the front like Mauser-derived rifle actions. While at first glance this appears to be a weaker action, the reality is that the flex built into the system allows it to cope remarkably well with a catastrophic overpressure event stemming from bad ammunition. And in the early days of the design, there was plenty of that-- the .303 British cartridge predates modern international ammunition standard organizations like SAAMI, but yet was manufactured and used across the length and breadth of the British Empire, for decades .303 British could be better described as a "theme" rather than a specification. All that said, the welding done to make this rifle safe has meant that the receiver and bolt body are now unusable, and so I must look elsewhere for parts.

This is where sporters come in. Sporters are former military rifles that have been cut down or had parts removed to make them easier to handle and more suitable as a hunting rifle. In Canada, there are a genuine shitload of Lee Enfield sporters, particularly Great War era No. 1 Mk IIIs as huge numbers of these were sold to the public and converted to hunting rifles with varying degrees of skill. What this usually meant was cutting down the wood fore stock, removing the upper hand guards and removing the rear sight protector as well. Here is a picture of a sportered No. 1 Mk. III*:



And here is a sportered Ross Mk III, which has had its barrel bobbed and is no longer a candidate for a full restoration (it is instead being turned slowly into an interbellum era target rifle):



Compare that to the rifle at the top of the post and you can see that quite a bit of material and components have been removed. The thing is, for No. 1 Mk. IIIs of all variants, the process of cutting down the stock has a tremendously detrimental effect on the accuracy of the rifle-- the stock is not just a frame in which the metal parts of the rifle sit, but rather a means by which the barrel is supported and stabilized while firing to improve its accuracy.

The reason for this stretches back to the Boer War, when the British Army went into battle with the first models of Lee Enfields, the Magazine Lee Enfield (MLE) Mk 1 and its variants. At that time, the infantry, cavalry and artillery were all armed with different kinds of rifle-- longer models for the infantry (for accuracy, and also as a platform with reach for a bayonet for fending off cavalry) and various types of shorter carbines for the cavalry and artillery. One of the many lessons learned during the Boer War was that the standard infantry rifle was longer and more awkward than it needed to be and keeping spares handy for three different patterns of rifle was an unnecessary headache. And so development began on the Short Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE) which was produced in one length for all branches of the army. To keep weight down, the barrel was shockingly thin for the time. This reduces the weight of the rifle, but it also means that the barrel flexes a lot more when the rifle fires, and this reduces accuracy. To counteract this, the forestock is designed to provide support and tension at different points along the barrel. This means that the fit between wood and metal in the front half of the rifle is incredibly finicky and downright arcane in comparison to its contemporaries, and this can also complicate restoration projects as well. Lee Enfields of the period, while mass produced, were still hand-fit to a shocking degree and one really has to take special care when restoring such a rifle to make sure what you finish up with shoots straight.

Back to the restoration. With the demilitarized rifle in hand, I started looking around for a rifle of a similar pattern to use as a parts donor to restore a rifle to a military specification. I was able to find a 1917 Birmingham Small Arms example in excellent shape, with the desirable pre-war Mk. 1 rear sight and matching serial numbers (meaning the numbers stamped on the barrel, receiver and bolt all match one another) at an auction and eventually bring it home. While I was waiting for that to arrive, I took apart the demilled rifle to get an idea of what parts were available. I knew the rifle had been packed with a lot of thick grease at one point (it was visible around the barrel in certain places, and the thing reeked of old grease), so I was sure that rust would not be an issue but I was concerned about grease rotting out the wood, especially near spots with end-grain. After a great deal of cursing, I got the rifle apart, only for very important chunks of the forestock to remain completely stuck to the receiver, and get torn free of the forestock itself.

This is what the affected area of the forestock is supposed to look like:



And this is what it actually looked like:



These were torn completely free:



The two torn out chunks are referred to as the draws and their role is to act as surfaces that cam into mating surfaces on the receiver to ensure a snug fit between the two. They are absolutely integral to accuracy in a No. 1 Mk. III rifle. Something had cracked them very badly in the distant past, and grease had slowly wicked its way into the cracks and further weakened the wood. How the christ did this happen?



This badly warped little fellow gave me an immediate hint. This is the stock plate, which sits in a socket at the very end of the forestock. Its role is to help reinforce this area of the stock, and to help locate it against the stock bolt that secures the buttstock to the receiver. The stock bolt has a squared off tip that locates into the square notch on the stock plate in the picture. If the stock bolt is tightened while the forestock is still attached to the rifle, you can bend and warp the stock plate and crack your forestock, which is exactly what happened here. Decades ago, the buttstock on the demilled rifle was loose, so someone decided to "fix" it by cranking down on the stock bolt. This tightened up the butt stock, but badly cracked the forestock.

And so now I had a major repair on my hands!

The first step of this involved de-greasing the wood to ensure that whatever adhesives I used would have something decent to grab onto. This involved a mix of chemical degreasers like Goo Gone and heat from a hairdryer to help coax all that nasty grease out of the wood. After several days of repeated treatments, I had it to a point where repairs could proceed. I opted for a product called acraglas for the job, as it is something of an industry standard for firearms repairs. Acraglas is a two-part epoxy resin that has a long hang-time, is very thick but also smooth and is incredibly strong. It accepts dies well, and can be further reinforced with aluminum or steel powder if one so desires. I also chose to use brass rod to help further reinforce the different fragments and the buttstock itself.



Here is the first stage of repairing the draws. You can see the brass rods sitting proud of the top of the left draw-- the right one is only in there for the sake of alignment. Acraglas, like other epoxies, does not require heavy clamping.



Here is the second draw being repaired. You can also see a slot that I cut into the stock at the bottom where a threaded brass rod was added with acraglas to help reinforce that area. When working with acraglas, if you wind up with squeeze out just let it harden and chip it off later with a chisel or hobby knife rather than attempt to wipe it away and smear it everywhere. Also visible is the stock plate in its slot: I bent it back to its original shape with a vise and then bedded it in there permanently with acraglas. It was later filed down so that it did not sit proud of the rest of the butt stock.



This brass rod was a reinforcement added by many armourers during the Great War. I pulled out the old brass rod, which had been bent and mangled by the aforementioned stock bolt turning and replaced it with fresh rod and acraglas. Brass blackener has made it indistinguishable from other brass reinforcements elsewhere on the stock.



Here you can see the left draw, with the excess brass rod and acraglass removed, and its right counterpart as the 'glas cures.

The brass pads on the face of the draws are also an historic repair done by many armourers. These were retained in the repair, but also filed down somewhat as a part of fitting the new receiver and barrel to the forestock.



And here is the finished product. I have since fully bedded the receiver and trigger plate with acraglas to further strengthen the stock. These modifications are not outwardly visible and were done with acraglas dyed black.



And a family photo. At the top is a sportered No. 1 Mk III* assembled out of leftover parts from this restoration. The next one down is the first No. 1 Mk. III* restoration I did (a non-matching 1916 RSAF Enfield example), using reproduction wood stocks. Third is the newest restoration (matching 1917 BSA Co) and the fourth is a WW2 Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk. 1 made at ROF Fazakerley in 1943.

I intend to get the newest restoration out to the range on Monday or Tuesday to test the strength of the repairs and to see how well it shoots.