Porter Baldridge Page 6
have any type of part that fits installed. If you want to upgrade your
rifle, or make it consistent, Springfield Sporters has both milled and
stamped parts available.
The Stevens NO.4 MKI and MKI* rifles marked US PROPERTY were
Lend Lease units sent to Britain after the US entered WWII. The ones
made previous to US involvement were not so marked.
Watch your headspace on all SMLE's. SARCO, Springfield Sporters,
and GPC have the various bolt heads to correct this. The rifles
coming in a lot of times have mismatched bolts. These bolt heads are
numbered 0 through 4, and each succeeding number is .003 longer
than the previous number. Maximum headspace is .074, minimum is
.064, field max is .080. Do not confuse expanded or separated cases
with excessive headspace. Some of these rifles, expecially wartime
production, have generous, or oversize chambers. So, if your
headspace is OK, but cases still separate or bulge, you are lucky
enought to have an oversized chamber. A quick and dirty way to check
your headspace is to cut a short piece of solder a little thicker than
.080, and holding the rifle muzzle down, insert a cartridge in the
chamber (make that a dummy, or a sized empty) then lay the piece of
solder across the head of the cartridge and close and lock the bolt.
It may take considerable force to do this, but do not beat on the bolt
handle, firm hand pressure should close it. Open the bolt and extract
the cartridge being careful not to drop or mash up the now flattened
piece of solder. Measure the thickness of the solder with a dial
caliper, or micrometer. If the headspace is correct, you should read
between .064 and .075. Minimum,or slightly under minimum
headspace will not hurt, though the rifle will be sensitive to rim
thickness of ammo. The plus side of this is that accuracy will improve.
Food for thought if one has the bolt heads to play with.
Firing pin protrusion on NO.1 rifles is .050 to .055, for NO.4 rifles, .040
to .050. Trigger pull should be 5 to 6 pounds. A quick and dirty way
to gage the bore is to take a .308 bullet and try it in the muzzle. The
base should go in no more than .250.
The rarest NO.1 Enfields are the Vickers and Sons, and the SSA/NRF
ones. The Enfield NO.4's are the rarest, and most or all of these were
made into snipers.
I have not looked into the 22 trainers, or the 22 conversion kits, you
are on your own on these. Nor have I studied Fencing Muskets, or
Drill Rifles.
© Porter Baldridge 1996 All rights reserved.