Anyone ever seen this happen to an Enfield ?

rifleshot

rifleshot

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Hello,
I went to clean my No4 Mk 1 Enfield today - and noticed the bolt face had fallen off !
I found it inside the magazine.
It appears as though someone wanted a larger bolt head (mine is a #1) and somehow welded / metal glued a perfectly cut shim onto the existing bolt face.
I wonder if that was an original factory job - because examining the bolt face with the shim off - it looks like it was never fired (no little rings where the primer was etc.)
Anyone ever seen such a thing ? I guess my solution is go get a #2 bolt head now.
Thanks for having a look !
John

Heres the bolt head showing the left over weld / metallic glue residue on each:

DSC_6315.jpg


Heres a shot of the bolt head and the other side (cartridge facing side) of the bolt face that fell off:

DSC_6314.jpg


Finally, here's a slightly closer shot of the bolt head with the "face" off:

DSC_6313.jpg
 
That is exactly what happened, and it is not something that they would do at the factory as they would have a full selection of different-sized bolt heads to choose from.
 
Lee Enfield bolt faces do not show lathe turning marks like that. Someone turned back the face, attempted to solder on a new face, which was then turned back to achieve headspace. The soldering job was very poorly done, with way less than 50% coverage.
This was not done by the military.
You are going to need a replacement bolthead.
 
I'm not sure that there is a proper way to do this. It is a matter of applying heat and maintaining heat treatment.
 
Thanks for the insight

Hey everyone,

Thanks alot for the insight on this. I went into my gun safe and pulled out an old No4 Mk1 sporter I had - removed the bolt head and it is a #2. (The one that fell apart was stamped #1).
If someone went to the trouble to mill / turn down the old bolt head and solder a shim in place - maybe afterwards it was not a #2 (my micrometer is at work...). (Oh, and the boltface was nice and smooth, not milled as you had mentioned).

So with the #2 bolt head in place - I was not able to close it on my "no go" guage (but nearly).

So I suppose I'm good - but it would have sucked to fire this rifle after the boltface fell off and experience a whopping headspace problem ?

Thanks again, appreciated.

John
 
"...How well does it work?..." It doesn't.
"...but nearly..." That's good enough. Has to close completely to be bad.
 
At the Gunboards Enfield forum in 2006 a machinist posted the following photos of his modified bolt head. The Enfield was a Turkish import with a mismatched bolt and excess headspace, the OP Norton47 determined that a No.3 bolt head would not fix his problem so he made his own No.8 bolt head. (give or take an inch) :rolleyes:

Bottom line Norton47 wanted to shoot cast bullets in his Enfield and not have the primers back out at low pressure.

9-3.jpg


The original bolt head was shortened and threaded to accept a new threaded extension to decrease headspace.

1.jpg


The extension was screwed into the bolt head.

2.jpg


The two parts were then soldered together, sorry I can't remember if it was silvered soldered or some other type of high temp bonding system. It looks like brazing but I think it was something else?

3.jpg


The bolt head extension was drilled for the firing pin.

4.jpg


The bolt head then was trimmed and and cut to the proper length.

5.jpg


6.jpg


Then the bolt head was heat treated on top of a soda can with some kind of powdered material and a torch. Please note it has been a long time and I forgot to back up the OP description of his work and only saved the photos and I'm not a machinist. :redface:

7.jpg


The finished product, and very nice work indeed.

8.jpg


It was stated during Norton47 posting that soldering an extension to the bolt head was not a good idea as it could come loose and fall off. He decided to thread the two parts together and make the joint stronger. Also note he only planned to use his modified bolt head with low pressure cast bullet loads and not full pressure loadings. Norton47 knew his pressure and thrust calculations and understood the bolt head pressure limitations.

Note, at Milsurps the British armourer Peter Laidler stated that any attempt at lengthening a bolt head was a bad idea. He stated that if the rifle failed headspace testing with a No.3 bolthead and a new bolt that the lug recesses in the receiver would be worn past the heat treated surface and into the softer steel and the receiver would be so much scrap metal.
 
bigedp51 said:
Note, at Milsurps the British armourer Peter Laidler stated that any attempt at lengthening a bolt head was a bad idea. He stated that if the rifle failed headspace testing with a No.3 bolthead and a new bolt that the lug recesses in the receiver would be worn past the heat treated surface and into the softer steel and the receiver would be so much scrap metal.
Click to expand...

I have to wonder if that would be the case, given that the heat treating marks can be seen to extend as much as 1/4" back from the surface of the recoil lugs.

But then, since no bolt head longer than a No3 was available, it didn't matter much, and as a matter of fact, if I remember Capt. Laidler's comments correctly, the standard was that a rifle had to HS correctly on a No2 bolthead in a new bolt. If it did not, then it was felt not to have enough life left to justify overhaul and was scrapped.

Unless I'm wrong about the recoil lug point, my guess is that it was determined that by the time a rifle wore down it's bolt & recoil lugs enough to warrant a No2 bolthead, it was probably getting very worn in other places such the boltway which is not hardened, and the HS was therefore used as a standard reference of overall wear.

That soldered on boltface would probably have worked, but the solder has not spread evenly or thinly enough and that and the continual shocks of recoil have caused it to separate; not enough heat or compression when soldering. The method of boring out the firing pin hole and making a plug to fit in it is much better.
 
Last edited:
ATOM said:
Anybody had any experience doing this (properly, I mean)? How well does it work?
Click to expand...

i have read that silver soldering onto the bolt face won't affect the heat treating of the steel ( search milton bradly and his 303 to 7.62x39 conversion ) .......

with that said , how hard is it really to take a turn out of the barrel and headspace to the smallest boltface possible ?

OR ;
if your planning to only use your handloads , fireform all your brass so they now head space on the shoulder .
 
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