Lee Enfield with a hammer forged barrel

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762shooter

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Ever heard of a 1953 Lee Enfield with a hammer forged barrel?

A friend claims to have one on it way to him that he states has an original, armory fitted hammer forged barrel in standard military profile.

What do you think? BS? Plausible? Some armorer's experiment?

When would hammer forged barrels have been available in England?
 
Enfield made hammer forged barrels. They were standard on the Envoy and sold as #4 barrels for those of us who used the #4 as a long range target rifle.

It is too fat to fit a standard #4 stock, unlss it is hogged out. All the ones I saw were in 308. They were tight, in the order .3065 x .307.

The rifle he is getting might be an Envoy.
 
I bought one of those and mounted it on a Martini. The metal in those things is hard as hell. The reamer needed to be very sharp and great care taken while cutting the threads.

Very good barrel though. As Ganderite mentioned, it has a tight bore. Really likes light 135 grain bullets.
 
762shooter said:
Ever heard of a 1953 Lee Enfield with a hammer forged barrel?

A friend claims to have one on it way to him that he states has an original, armory fitted hammer forged barrel in standard military profile.

What do you think? BS? Plausible? Some armorer's experiment?

When would hammer forged barrels have been available in England?
Click to expand...

The British had "dolled" barrels manufactured by Accles & Pollock during WW2.

They were manufactured in both 9mm for Sten Guns (2 groove?) and in .303 for the No4 rifle. From reading Skennerton I'm not sure if these were conventional 5 groove, or the experimental 3 groove barrels they tried.

At this stage they weren't able to form the complete contour of the No4 barrel which caused some issues; apparently the bores were grey- instructions were supposedly issued to note that these special barrels wouldn't come clean and shiny as a conventional bore, so the NCO's weren't to "sh*te" down the neck of soldiers issued these guns.

The .303 barrels were ordered withdrawn (replaced at FTR) after the war because they had to shrink and pin the knoxform reinforce over the barrel tube. This was noted as coming loose during extended firing when the barrel became hot...

For numbers produced you would have to refer to Skennerton, but IIRC it was on the order of 60-100K
 
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