No 4mk 2 to mk1-fitting the draws

The days of plentiful No 4 parts are coming to a close so drastic measures are sometimes needed to patch a rifle back together.

If your like me, sometimes a cut down stock or one that's been cut and glued back together at the front band..... well, just doesn't cut it.
In the LE series of rifles with very few exceptions, you need to have a decent bearing at the front of the stock that interacts with the draws to get any kind of decent repeatable on target performance that one could count on.

The evolution of the design eventually caught up with the need for some sort of manufacturing expediency to reduce cost in the way of hand fitting associated with the earlier mk's that were built with a complex engineered compensated barrel system intended to work with all lots of ammunition that achieved a well established accuracy standard known as figure of merit with a pencil thin barrel. (beats increasing a powder charge one calorie at a time and then blowing 35 some odd percent of the energy out of the muzzle with the heat captured in the brass case and bullet and dicking around with a powder measure and a few like brass cases all day) Whew!

Anyway,
When the No 4 came along, we were blessed with a heavier barrel profile but still have to rely on particular bearing surfaces that interact with the weapon system to meet acceptable accuracy standards.
Even later on and towards the end of production, the action body itself was re-engineered to further simplify the design by welding or brazing a lug to the front of the body socket to hang the trigger from the solidly attached lug and further simplify fitting up when rifles were rebuilt for additional service opportunity.
SO what does all this mean? Decent No 4 fore stocks are hard to find these days so an acceptable means of kitting some old junk parts together into a killer rifle is needed.
Lucky for us, spare mk 2 timber for the series can still be found and then repurposed into an earlier mk to get as close as one could get without getting buried in unnecessary cost, and then still being able to settle in hard with a sling without snapping some glue and steel rod joint in half winding up with two pieces.
Just patch a piece in at the rear of the timber and do it right with an oak dowel and some animal glue while hiding the patch with a tie strap later on.

But, before you get to all that, with new timber and your rifle in pieces, do some preliminary work to make sure the draws are fitted up tight to the action body and work on the patch at the rear later on in the conservation process.
I put some tips together if you ever wanted to know.
Its a bunch of pictures so it will be in two posts. Im out here in the woods too so you may have to go through the pain of clicking on a attachment to see a picture.

So what one could do is, candle black the sear lugs and tap the body into the in-letting to begin the transfer with a soft faced mallet

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Very carefully, begin to pare down the candle black with a quality sharp chisel to where the sear lugs just begin to enter the stock. If you happen to have a chisel the same with of the draws (recoil surfaces) your in good shape. its very important to understand right from the beginning, that because the lugs on the body are angled, the removal of too much wood will not cause the body to bear at the front bearing surface of the barrel to 4-7 lbs pressure.
Its everything, remember the compensation built into the barrel?
The front of the wrist socket is angled to interact with the flat on at the back of the fore-arm to make the fit very tight, as both the sear lugs and flat face of the body socket front come together with the timber.

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Carefully, clean the draws off with your sharp as the dickens chisel one little slice at a time. SOmetimes you pull it to you to get that little tiny bit like a scraper.

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Keep re-sooting and go very carefully. Did I say you need a sharp as hell chisel? Leave the dremel to the experts.

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Heres how the end of the stock and socket come together. It'll move then stop, move then stop- yo would think that nothings moving. Chisel blacken chisel-scrape a very small amount of wood evenly from both draws at the same time. Not too fast here or you could blow it by removing too much to fast.

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Here you can see those beauties coming together above, notice the rear of the sear lugs, how close they are to the draws and the way the stock is oriented for reference. Flat face of the wrist socket is driving the wood into the rear of the metal sear lugs.


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Bearing for the barrel at the front of the stock. When the draws are tightly fit, the stock will snap together at the rear in fell swoop and once the main-screw is tightened, that blackened area should be firmly in contact with the bottom third of the wood pad. Here, I laid the stripped barrel and removed wood at the sides of the stock channel.

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Keep blackening the action body and rear of sear lugs, use a mallet to drive the body downwards into the draws so you can see the compression of the wood and the transferred lampblack.
Its very important to know that the lamp black will continue to be transferred to the the top of the wooden draws as the body is lowered one small bit at a time. Resist the urge to make off a bunch of wood at the top of the draws in order to lower the body quicker. What will happen, is the pressure at the front barrel bearing will be reduced, and the ingenious engineering methods used to create the rifle system will be lost.
The forearm should snap in place and be fitted up tight to the rear sear lug area, as well as the front smooth face of the wrist socket.
The angles of the sear lugs and the front of the socket are very slightly different, but because they will eventually meet way above the action body if you drew a straight line between them, they get tighter as both the wooden fore-arm and body are put together as one.

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See additional post, maybe you wont have to click to see a pic this time

Pictures here

Must be a lot of people in Salisbury tonight at the mall googling each other, internet sucks
(pictures here.)

Finish up

Bottom of the sear lug area or draws is at left.
As you carefully and slowly make off the extra wood, and with judicious rapping with your mallet, the action body will be lowered.
There is a point at which you can turn the forearm over and the squarely rap the wood to the left and right of the trigger guard edges to continue to drive the timber home and transfer the lamp black.
You knock the forearm loose by striking the rear of the wood to the left and right of the rear receiver sides near the wrist socket to separate the two pieces.
NEVER pull down at the front of the fore arm to remove it, the metal sear lugs at the rear will act as a powerful lever and destroy any relationship to the wooden draws rear for them being tight.



Begin to fit the bottom metal, the rear screw hole in this picture is slightly lower than the hangers it attaches to. The bottom metal needs to be perfectly flat and not tip front or back so the trigger works against the sear bent the same way every time. You'll never get a consistent trigger pull and let off, if this important step is overlooked or dismissed.



There it is, perfectly flat. Right at the front of the trigger bow the wood transitions smoothly right along the same parallel as the bottom metal.
The small screw should cleanly enter right through the small hole and thread without binding when its right.



The action body should be free all the way around its exterior, the spigot, flat on the wood underneath it just to the rear of the barrel reinforce or knox form




And..... the milled flat of the rest of the body beginning to print a nice pattern on the bottom of its entire surface.
Some other day once a nice piece of oak will be patched in where the trigger lug would normally be on a mk 2 stock, there will be a wood dowel installed in that bolt hole which will be covered up with a tie plate stolen from some other forlorn sported front end.
The reason you do that, is to make sure the bolt that normally would be there wont become egged out and loose from not having the brazed trigger lugs betwixt the stock to support it from either side. + Because, you can do it the right way if you wanted to. Slapping parts on these rifles is never the way to go if you expect it to shoot decently.

Iron blackened the metal, installed the barrel checked headspace. Fitted a "0" bolt head to a used barrel and action body.
Checked firing pin protrusion, .045 and bolt head lift to be about 1/64". Got a new old Parker Hale box mag going on there- tinned the threads on the striker rod to fit tightly into the cocking piece to get a good pull off. Made nice even contact on the locking lugs and so on.

What is bolt head lift?
Bolt head lift, is when the cocking piece is in the fired position with the bolt head unscrewed a couple of turns.
When you thread the bolt head back towards the bolt body, the rear of the cocking piece should "Lift" from the rear of the bolt sleeve a very small amount.This is very important in the LE system.

Whats happening, is the collar at the rear of the bolt head has a seat made into it. The collar on the firing pin sits neatly and squarely on to it when its forward and must remain under tension.

There is a moment when the striker is released and the striker moves forward towards the primer, that the tension created by the firing pin spring is in an uncontrolled state until the collar contacts the rear of the bolt head cup or seat. Because the firing pin spring is compressed, it makes a rotational torque.

Because the bolt sleeve is a interrupted thread screw, when that cartridge goes bang the coils in the spring could allow the bolt to unlock right at the moment of ignition because its "floating." Especially if its bound up or twisted. Could be burrs on the end of the spring, broken coils going on in there ghost of Bernard Montgomery etc.

If you ever snapped a LE on an empty chamber dry firing and you see the bolt handle jumping upwards and then back shut, you'll know what I mean.
The bolt head allows the bolt sleeve to rotate around it. There has to be a little something there to keep a little bit of pressure thrust backwards on to the bolt lugs till pressure builds sufficiently to bear against the lugs.Your face may thank you for it one day.

Anyway, still more fitting to do, need a nice beech butt-stock too.

Did you make a receiver wrench?

303_enfield said:

Did you make a receiver wrench?

Click to expand...

Yes, Ive had it for some time but actually my son made it at his machine shop.
(He actually knows what he's doing and not a hack like me.)

It's three pieces that you have to use for the LE's because of the spigot, but only need the two jaws (fixed and movable) for Japs, Mauser, or anything else except M1-Krag and the carbines of course.
The third piece, clamps to the top milled flat of the spigot and not to the sides to prevent oval-ling/ galling.

So then,
make yourself a "T" shaped patch that's made just right to fit right in the rear of the stock. Not too narrow, not to wide.
Cut it from a piece of seasoned oak and then make sure to fashion it so the grain is going the right way for final fitting.
If this were a piece cut out to repair the draws, the grain would have to be going the right way so it can be carefully pared down a sliver at time with your chisel instead of bucking the grain tearing the fibers instead of neatly slicing them off.



A large portion of the front of the patch (the tongue section extending forward) will have to be removed to make room for the trigger bent. If you leave it long for initial fitting, it will help keep it straight for the removal of wood at the patch front section right where it becomes narrow. This an important step. (see below) Just make off with a chisel what you don't need using the inside of the stock pattern for a guide afterwards.

Because the front portion of the T section butts up to an angled surface, "it's wider at the top than at the bottom", a close fit is needed here to not just make the patch strong, but to make sure the patch has enough surface area for when the transverse dowel goes through, it doesn't go through the front of it only.
If it's mis aligned or poorly fit, the dowel wouldn't have much purchase on the patch.
Luckily, the rearmost angled surface of the stock is cut at the same angle, so if you reverse the patch to upside down and make it flat with the in-letting on stock top, one could draw or scribe lines to mimic the angle.
Flip the patch over and then quickly make off the extra wood so when its re-inserted, its level and up tight to the stock mating surface.



Once every thing is a go, prepare a 1/4" oak wood dowel that will be driven through the patch and the stock. In this picture you can see the grain to the dowel is opposite the stock wood. If we were going to make this off to patch a hole, you would be better off to form another key shaped dowel with the grain going the right way from a block of wood. That way, when its trimmed/filed down, the grain will flow with the rest of the wood and be very hard to detect the repair.
Mix up some glass and apply liberally to all the contact surfaces of the patch/dowel then clamp it together for about 24 hrs.




For this one, we robbed a cut down sporter stock for the tie-plate. The dowel will be right underneath it so it will be hidden. Plus, when we drill through it again, it will be easier to keep straight because you have to hit the other end of the plate just right and not off center.
When it comes to it, remember to inlet the underside of the tie plate slightly more so it compresses once the pin is driven through.
It's the spring-back of the tie that tensions itself on the pin to keep it tight.
Once you have a good grab, peen the ends of the pin over to set it in place.
Originally there was a brass nail used to tie it all together. Ill use brass stock heated up with a torch to soften it enough to mushroom it over for tension on either side.

Prep your tie plate by drilling clean through 1/8" for your brass rod.
Dont forget to heat the pin up to soften it. When you peen it over it will squash out easier. Using a dolly on the other side will make short work of it.



Lay the tie out across the back of the fore-end in a way that it will wind up right in front of the screw bolt-stock when its installed. Once its all lined out, make off the excess wood so the tie lays flush with the front face of the wrist socket. Drill through each end of the wood pin you installed just so. Nice and straight so it doesn't get all Bit^%ed up and crooked. Im a risk taker so I just blew through it with a cordless drill and hit the tie plate just right. Another way to do it is to make a pin in a short block of wood, set it on a drill press so the bit meets it, level/square the stock and bore right through.







Once you drive the brass pin through, bevel- make off extra wood at the in-letting you already performed.





Here's the tie (shiny see below) right in front of the screw, bolt- stock. In an earlier image, the one where you can see the in-letting done to accommodate the tie, the additional wood that was placed in the center of the stock mortise can be left proud to adjust tension at the draws.

If you removed slightly too much wood at the top of the draws when fitting the body, the additional tension created by your add in piece can be cleverly fashioned to provide the addition tension needed to increase muzzle pressure at the bearing surface at the front of the stock. Right at the flat surface of the rear of your fore stock and the accompanying face of the front of the wrist.

The angle at the top of the draws, forces the barreled action downwards at the front. SO, carefully removing wood at the beginning of fitting is absolutely crucial to getting the tension needed for an increase in accuracy, due to minimizing unnecessary barrel vibration and jump. Just don't hog it out in a rush to get the action to drop right in.
When you put a scale at the muzzle, and lift up, you want to pick about 5-7 lbs upwards.
I often wondered if using the old style, Mk I bolt that has the square lug at the front of it. That it could be used to drive the forestock forward just enough to bodge in some additional tension if needed in a pinch.
Probably better to just fit it up like it should be.
Once its all fitted out, grease the underside of the barrel and action slightly and send it home.



I didn't go into how to fit the butt stock because it's only a matter of making sure the tenon fits right up to the rear of the socket with no room to vibrate and the tenon is tapered properly to not allow it to come loose from firing.
There are two types of tenons, the ones that have one elliptical shape to the front of them on the outside and some have a double lugged arrangement that will need fitted to the rear of the socket. This a S marked action so it has the single lugged mortise /tenon. Either or will work and they can be swapped.

I will add, the the way to drive the butt stock in is not by banging away at the rear with a mallet, but by using a large dowel placed inside the trap against the flat washer in there to wack it up tight. (don't forget the thackray washer.) The butt stocks were originally driven on with a machine during the manufacture process making the strongest rifle stock that I'm aware of for the lightest weight possible.
When your done, it should look something like this or a close facsimile thereof. No rare, or historically significant firearms were harmed for this project. Hopefully its a good,bang on shooter rifle for somebody one day.