Early Summer Re-fit

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  • Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Following up on the carbonized stuck barrel I'm going to refit the same and bring it back for a shooter.

    This time around it'll be an old BSA that will wind up a conglomeration of parts.
    It's going to need a complete gone through including draws, re-barrel, bolt fitting, pull off adjusted maybe some metal treatment, buttstock fitted, action/forearm bedding etc.

    Right now I have a pile of parts that need cooked off and prepped for refinish then off to the wood pile to find some oak patches that can be pegged in. Ill work with what I have using home spun methods so hopefully it will turn out well.

    In one of the pictures you can see the draws damaged from someone pulling the forearm down from the front which is a no go for a LE if you want it to shoot worth a damn. Luckily I have a brand new barrel but I would like to find a round head cocking piece and some new pins for the trigger before all that hand work goes on.

    Every piece of the bolt guts and trigger bents on the LE has to work carefully together to get the best performance as well as the action/ barrel bedding so they're kind of fun to work on. It would be a PIA to have to go back for a redo if something doesn't work just right from the beginning regardless of how well the finish or appearance turns out.

    Little at a time Ill work through this to get it done and then move on to something else before fall.

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    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    I have a weird black/brown going on here, maybe my solution is getting weak or should have been more careful boiling off the grease and oil-suncorite mess that was on the parts.

    Could have polished it bright or even did the metal soon as it came out of the cabinet but I let it go overnight too which I shouldn't have done. Who knows.

    At any rate, lightly glass beaded, detergent wash off, cooked off and then blue browning chem applied, neutralized, oven dried and used motor oil splash down while still hot.

    Little thin in a few places but I'm not going to redo-it, maybe it will season out some or I may re heat and cover with some flax seed oil and buff with a rag.

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    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Couldn't stand the finish on the bolt, body and nose cap. So anyhow I re-did them. Worked out better, once you glass bead don't wait over night,get them right to the boiling water and chemicals.

    Torn between turkey hunting and running late for picking out some wood products for the draws, I decided to mess around in the garage and bag turkey hunting for working on an old rifle.

    Having a bolt body unnumbered to the body, I started into some preliminary fitting. Sure enough, the right lug was high as mount Everest.

    In the next few pictures you can see the high lug, lapping and checking for contact, high tech rigging using a .452 xtp and an old Mauser firing pin spring fit around the neck of a .303 cartridge and then then the body screwed onto an old barrel. Just advance the body onto the barrel stub to increase contact as you see fit and things begin to come together.

    I start with valve grinding compound and spit (watch out cuts fast) and then 600 lapping grit with a drop or two of heavy oil. My plan here is to achieve decent contact without going overboard, I don't want to come up to short when the bolt closes, I only have two bolt heads for a No.1 a long one and a short one and I want to be able to lap the bolt face square to clean it up if one or the other is close to being in range.

    Images should be in order as contact is increased but if not, you get the idea. Second to last is what the locking lug recesses look like on a LE in case no-one has ever seen them, last one is a comparison of the draws, Ill be going over the fore end on the left, looks like they've both been worked before. The no 4 on the right has been done right and fits tight but some sadist cut it off for a truck gun and sent it to brit rifle heaven long ago. You can just make out vertical hardwood pegs anchoring them to the stock.

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    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    More Bolt fitting

    Some follow up, after identifying and taking some steps to static fit contact surfaces of a mismatched bolt, which in this case were lucky because we had parts that could be lapped together to equalize fit were moving on.

    One side note, those surfaces inside the action body are hardened and the short lug side is hard to get to and luckily they're not all smashed up which we found out by determining one side higher than the other when we started into it.

    So here we have a bunch of bolt guts ready to be cleaned and put back together, easy peasy right?
    View attachment 259855


    Not quite yet, more checks need to be made. And if you ever bitched about surplus ammo being click bang, 303 sucks and erratic ignition and all that here are a few points to ponder. Not saying the surplus is always good stuff and was always stored in a temperature controlled environment and wiped down bi-annually and an exact round count taken......well I'm off topic and I do not disagree but maybe well here's something else to consider for making a rifle function the best it could.

    Bolt overturn,
    Bolt heads should not turn on more than 16 degrees. Excuse the crudely done picture it's for reference only. I couldn't find my steel protractor (I think #1 son mounted to his tree-stand or something to monitor rising moon deflection for developing sika tide theoretical s....)
    I'm right about 10-11'sh. The reason for this is that the bolt head and body threads will take the recoil instead of transmitting it down equally through the bolt body instead of the bolt head tenon and face in a radial fashion to the closely fitted internal action body lugs. "T" or regulated Fulton style" for those who regard that sort of thing. "I" am just a squirrel trying to get a nut while enjoying her majesties recently obsolete hardware so now Ill go on about a few other things.

    View attachment 259856

    Other things- Striker spring length and striker to cocking piece fit and bolt head lift. Earlier on we said,
    "Every piece of the bolt guts and trigger bents on the LE has to work carefully together to get the best performance as well as the action/ barrel bedding so they're kind of fun to work on."

    Strikers must fit the cocking piece so that they are flush at the rear of the CP, do not turn inside the bolt body when the bolt head is being screwed on and not be able to be screwed in by hand. My striker is loose fitted to the cocking piece. So in order to fix that I'm going to have to tin the threads to make sure I have to use a take-down tool to install. No glue, thread locker or JB weld. It is fixed by tinning or at least by lightly stamping a small S or 5 on the threads to tighten it up. We very well can't have that thing flopping around inside there while were working the rifle can we? You'll never be able to get a consistent or repeatable pull off. Doesn't do much for accuracy in allowing the primer to be struck the same way every time or allow the trigger bents to be in perfect working alignment either.
    They (striker) must not be bent, you can check by rolling across a trued surface, the striker spring should be 3.4" long. If the spring is short no panic you can probably stretch it out a small bit and I bet your rifle will still go bang when you want it to.

    Bolt head lift why is this important? It prevents the CP safety lug from banging on the face of the long cam groove of the bolt body and breaking it off or at the least preventing FP protrusion from becoming an issue unexpectedly or over a period of time. You check for this by installing your striker flush with the rear of cocking piece and then threading the bolt head on to the body until it's 3/4 to a 1/2 turn shut while feeling for and watching the cocking piece to just begin to rise and measuring clearance at the rear of bolt body with a feeler gauge. .016-.060 is what your after. If the clearance is too great, the collar on the front of the striker needs to be adjusted so that it remains square and your in range. I'm at .028

    Lastly, the no 1 has an internal web inside the action body just like a Mauser. I can get an average by measuring with a caliper at five different locations providing a rough HS measurement. I came up with .066 which is a little tight but hopefully it will pan out when the bolt head is adjusted for full contact on a gauge to make sure there is even and full contact with prussian blue or lampblack on the bolt face and head of the gauge. Hopefully it all works out, now I need to grunt the barrel on and do some more checks.
     

    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Screwed up the pictures!

    Bolt guts not quite ready,

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    Measuring overturn,

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    Taking a blurry picture of bolt lift while holding a feeler gauge and camera at the same time, Touching turning feel and watching while watching the cp rise just before bolt head closing to the body,

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    Striker spring length.

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    Head gap-space averages, with internal web,

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    Almost forgot, striker protrusion should be about .040-.050 with the striker all the way forward. If it's too high, stone it down squarely until it's right. Just round the edges off making a nice radius until it's become round. If it's too short the collar will have to be reduced which will also affect your bolt lift clearance which would have already become evident by this time. Striker port clearance is .084 and now we can see why all these parts are interactive and directly related to how they each work in turn.
     

    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Cocking piece Bents and Sears

    Words on fire control parts.
    Earlier we talked about making sure the striker fits the Cocking piece tightly so that a take down tool is needed to thread it together.
    Heres why, if it's moving around none of these other parts are going to interact in a predictable manner that is consistent.
    We're shooting for a first stage pull off around 3-4 lbs. and a second pull of 5-6.5.
    Too heavy for an accurate rifle? not in the least bit and this how you get to the proverbial "breaks like glass on a LE" just like any other rifle.
    The cocking bent "long sear arm" that interacts with the face of the cocking piece is where you get some performance. It has been made with a 4 1/2 degree angle that you want and need to maintain. It must be square horizontally and be free of ripples nicks and dents. Adjusting this angle is how you can increase or decrease pull weight but it's so hard to polish you almost cannot do it without some sort of fixture. So what I did here was verry lightly polish with a sharp square stone just to clean it up and then stop.

    The face of the cocking piece is easy to hit and then carefully polish this same surface. A good tip is to have a stone that is as wide as the part that's being polished so you can get good follow through while keeping it level. Make sure to polish in the same direction the parts are moving! When I can I like to lay the stone on the vise table and usually move the part, but on these I have to hold the part and move the stone. Use the vise or a stable object to support the piece lay the stone flat and keep it flat as you move using a part of the vise as a guide with the stone right up next to it.

    A better way to remove weight is to just swap striker springs if you happen to have a box of them laying around but my spring is already in the bolt and fitted up. Another thing, polish the CP while its off the bolt and before you thread your tinned up striker into it. You don't want to keep pulling that stuff apart.

    Anyway, the short arm of the sear that the trigger ribs ride needs to be polished the same way. Up and down the way the ribs move on it. (more on those later) all the while maintaining the same angle very carefully.

    Sometimes, the long arm of the sear will make its way up into the action body and contact the small locking bolt lug. There is a shelf on the action body that helps keeps this from happening. This can result from the bolt way being worn. I posted a picture of this in a WTB a few days ago if you happened to see it.
    You can raise metal with a hardened punch to keep the sear from riding up or.... grind clearance on the radius of the small lug to eliminate friction and contact. This is a good tip when checking out a rifle because you can feel it and also why you have to be careful with DP rifle bolts and parts. Sometimes the lug is crudely ground down just to keep them working so now we know a little about that sort of thing.
    It makes no difference where the nose of the sear contacts the cocking piece bent but it should wind up towards the bottom of it and is controlled by the height and the hand off of the two trigger ribs which you can adjust by manipulating them.

    All tinned up and ready to go

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    Cocking piece polished

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    Short arm of the sear where the trigger ribs will ride

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    Long arm cocking piece bent where it contacts the CP. Using the flash is a good way to check your work. Burrs will show up just like a shadow on the edge of a knife blade. This is as good as I can get at the moment. Getting the mirror polish is from 1000 wet dry paper rubbed in a circular motion and trued steel block with kroil, dont tell anybody how we did it.

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    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Some random pictures fixing the woods, messed up bent prior to polishing and using a dowel spun in a drill to get some dust into where the stock needed doweled. lower sling swivels same thing, needed doweled.

    Anyhow, re- assemble for bore site and function test fire, every thing good to go except I noticed there is some slack in the rear sight elevation bar so I'll have to squeeze the ears or more than likely punch-peen the bar to tighten it some and the extractor tension is a little high but empties flung well clear from the rifle.

    I'm going to take it to the range prior to chiseling out and replacing the draws just to see what kind of improvement occurs and do some comparison. Right now you can see a gap by eye between the front face of the rear socket and the fore-end so it will be interesting to see what happens.
    More on all of that later including a look at the bedding contact points to see what needs to happen there. Ill probably just leave the exterior woods the way they are, it's so ugly I kind of like it that way.

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    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Here's a neat drawing. Some say five groove rifling or any odd number is best because when the rifling is cut the tooling that supports the cutter rides on a land and is better supported as it travels through the bore instead of traveling over a groove, I don't know I could never shoot well enough to tell and nobody ever talks about that sort of thing these days, I just like the old drawings.

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    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Is that gonna be another safe queen or a shooter DoCo?

    This one has two things on top of it that you need to line up when you use it and one of them(on the back) has a little wheel on it that's a big help for up and down if it's not quite good enough.

    Shouldn't you be worried about other things anyhow? Your brother is not a good turkey hunter and never shot a lot of ducks but knows where they're at and doesn't let them know where he's at.
     

    outrider58

    Eats Bacon Raw
    MDS Supporter
    Jul 29, 2014
    49,810
    This one has two things on top of it that you need to line up when you use it and one of them(on the back) has a little wheel on it that's a big help for up and down if it's not quite good enough.

    Shouldn't you be worried about other things anyhow? Your brother is not a good turkey hunter and never shot a lot of ducks but knows where they're at and doesn't let them know where he's at.

    :lol:
     

    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Here you can see a gap that needs tightened up in the area where the fore-end meets the butt-socket. These two need to meet up flush to get good contact at the knox form and begin to add pressure to the barrel near the muzzle. Refreshing the wood behind the sear lugs which are angled will fulcrum the action body downwards if I do this right.

    Chisel out the rotten wood that was the old draws, keep going till it (the wood) tightens up, I'm boiling out with scalding water, dried out and then all clamped up.

    It's one piece of oak in there that will be cut in half to make room for the trigger parts and magazine arm. Before that's done and once the sear lugs are carefully bedded at the correct angle, I'll make some tiny oak pegs that will be driven vertically through the new draws into the mortise I made. I formed the patch with the grain going vertically so it's easier to fit with a chisel and not beat them up because they are only fastened with tite bond wood glue till that's done.

    I forgot a picture of the dried out wood after being soaked with the boiling water. White as a ghost. In between splashing it with the scalding water I sprayed it with Brake clean to evaporate the water and leach out the oil and grease. Then dried it further with the heat gun.

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    Doco Overboard

    Ultimate Member
    Well, close enough for the draws. Still plenty enough to do yet with the hand-guards and other bearing points but almost there.

    In the next post with pictures you can see grease and oil boiled out, patched and pegged draws, excess wood made off and contact points coming together.
    At this point the fore-arm bears evenly with no gap at the face of the butt-socket, barreled action lays in the center of the fore-arm and snaps shut at the rear when assembled.

    Once the fore-arm is in place, the bottom metal needs to lay flat in its in-letting. What this means is that it need to lay right in there and be FLAT.
    The tiny screw that secures the bottom metal to the socket needs to be able to thread right home. No pushing down and getting it started, leaving the main screw a few turns loose starting the screw and tightening it up together and calling it done, Flat, is what it needs to be.

    The reason is because if it's not, all the work on the trigger bents and bolt guts means nothing the interaction between the parts will be inconsistent. Another thing, the collar that supports the spigot for the main screw was cleaned out with a small reamer and it's height was reduced a few thou. to get a wear patter at the Knox
    I need to be able to get a nice wear pattern on the in-letting for the barrel re-enforce at the Knox about a 1/3 it's diameter and centered while maintaining pressure at the fore-end tip while the main screw threads smoothly and stops tight at 7 1/2 turns.
    These rifles unlike the No.4 also have a spring loaded buffer just aft of the muzzle and a threaded collar just in front of the sight protectors that all need to work in unison with the bedding and control barrel vibration. We can investigate the relationship of that system after a few good work outs at the range to see how they react.
     

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