7.62x39 Enfield... My little quest...

H Wally said:
Good work there - neat design, and guaranteed to get the fudds up in arms:p


Glad to see someone making use of the unlimited mag capacity of bolt guns too!

I was under the impression that enfield barrels generally didn't have enough meat on them to set them that far back. IE - you'd have a gap under the reciever ring where the barrel was smaller than the ID of the reciever ring.

Also, why not make double stack? Just didn't plan at the time? In my opinion they're easier to make than single stack mags in some ways.
Click to expand...

My enfield barrel ended up getting cut right around the groove at the end of the threads before the shoulder (cant think of the proper term). The neck and throat are still in approximately the same spot (.303 neck is longer than 7.62x39) as the .303 just a few thou deeper in. As such, there is a short un-threaded section before the new threads start. If I recall correctly I have one less thread on my "new" barrel than the old because of this. My "new" barrel also only bears on the outer shoulder. I was concerned about that for a while until I realized that the AIA guns used a barrel nut (I nearly went with one myself) and one selling point was this "easily adjustable head spacing feature". I gather that a barrel of this type only bears on the shoulder provided by the nut. Special Interest Arms appears to use a full length barrel that bears on both inner and outer shoulders and has the chamber face set back into the barrel to still rely on a stock length enfield bolt head.

Here is what's left of the old barrel... Add to it the .125" width parting tool and the facing cuts made to the remainder and that's how much was chopped... you can see the unthreaded section at the beginning, the new barrel has a slightly longer unthreaded length.

DSCN0028.jpg


I first made the side plates of the single stack by copying the curve of a stripper clip. When I started figuring out the width (I don't have any other 7.62x39 mags to work off of) to make the mag I considered a double stack but decided to go with a single stack as it was the most likely to work without issue. I didn't want to waste my efforts by building something that was prone to binding up because my curve or width was not correct.

MB
 
is that a custom flash hider? it doesnt look like a real no5 flash hider
is there any reason he couldnt use a 20 (or 30) round mag for anything in 7.62 and weld it in to an enfield mag body, unpinned? seems to me that it would then be designed only for this bolt action rifle, and therefore unlimited
 
What about a 30round AK magazine permanently modified to fit the Enfield mag shell would that be feasible?
It wouldn't work in an AK anymore so would that be legal?
 
Apparently with a pair of pliers you can modify the lips of a AK mag to fit a ishy enfield. Someone on surplusrifleforum has pictures of it.
 
woodchopper said:
just a thought on your mag, is there a reason you mounted it that far back in the 303 shell ?

oh and a few more pictures of the barrel mod please :)
Click to expand...

The mag is actually as far forward as I could get it and still have the feed lips parallel to the bolt. Any misalignment generally resulted in the rounds nosing down too far and jamming on the feed ramp. The mag has quite a curve to it and the bottom front edge is flush up against the front of the mag well.

mag.jpg


Not much to see with the barrel... The OD was turned down a bit concentric to the bore to facilitate mounting it in the chuck for facing and reaming. The collar was silver soldered back on to allow the use of a standard upper hand guard retaining ring. I was going to go with a threaded barrel nut but decided to see If I could pull it off with a standard shoulder first. It's a little hard to see the gap left in the hand guard around the knox form due to shadows but you can get the rough idea of how far back it has been set...

barrel1.jpg


Not much to see from this end except for the fact that the barrel isn't bearing against the inner shoulder, that and my less than perfectly smooth chamber :redface: ...

barrel2.jpg



scott585 said:
is that a custom flash hider? it doesnt look like a real no5 flash hider
is there any reason he couldnt use a 20 (or 30) round mag for anything in 7.62 and weld it in to an enfield mag body, unpinned? seems to me that it would then be designed only for this bolt action rifle, and therefore unlimited
Click to expand...

Sweet Zombie Jesus! someone finally commented on it!!! I swear I spent more time on the flash hider/front sight than I did on the rest of the conversion. I made it up off of pic's of No5's I found on line. nothing is to scale with it, just something to give it a No5 flavor. It also has a set screw that fixes the blade sight in place to ensure it doesn't go anywhere.

brake1-1.jpg


I chose to make my own mag to bypass any legal gray area in un-pinning/ reuse of a factory mag. Out legal system/firearms legislation doesn't appear to favor doing things the easy/logical way...

revilo said:
Cool. I've got a p14 action at my disposal that I'd like to do something like that with. Any ideas if it can be done with relative ease?
Click to expand...

No clue... I've never seen a P14 up close but from pic's I just googled on the net, I'd hazard It would likely be easier as it appears to be a mauser style rifle and would likely require no modification for the ejection cycle with it's big blade ejecter. Likely a new/modified extractor would be in order and possibly a bolt face insert to reduce it to the rim size of a 7.62 case. The barrel would need to be set back/re chambered, but if it is like other mauser barrels no extractor cut/ indexing would be required.

Just don't do it to a good original rifle or the mob will come after me once they are done with you... :p

MB
 
matty86suk said:
can you do mine next???
Click to expand...

Absolutely... Ill send you my info so you can transfer it to me, I'd love to do another tanker. I don't shoot my other baby as much as I'd like due to the fact it's .303Brit and I don't know where to get cheap bullets to reload with...

DSC_0055.jpg


I could really use another Enfield... Hey, I've wanted to do a .22 conversion as well, you don't happen to have a second free gun to give me do you? :D

MB
 
MiltonBradly said:
Absolutely... Ill send you my info so you can transfer it to me, I'd love to do another tanker. I don't shoot my other baby as much as I'd like due to the fact it's .303Brit and I don't know where to get cheap bullets to reload with...

DSC_0055.jpg


I could really use another Enfield... Hey, I've wanted to do a .22 conversion as well, you don't happen to have a second free gun to give me do you? :D

MB
Click to expand...

Nice tanker, I like the wood :D

I did one as well, I should dig up that thread again, only difference was I put the foresight farther back on the barrel.

I see what your talking about with the mag, I guess a doubble stack would have less curve and you would be alble to sit it further forward. Now as I understand it the mag body is just a mag body and its not untill the mag is assembled that it must be pined to 5. So if you permantly alter the mag body so its no longer functional before you assemble it I would think that your good. But I'm not a lawyer ;)

perhaps you could use an SKS mag as a template for your next mag :D


Oh and yes I did notice your No5 ish flash cone, Nice work on that one, did you make it in 2 parts and then weld them together for final machining or did you do it all in one piece?
 
woodchopper said:
...perhaps you could use an SKS mag as a template for your next mag :D


Oh and yes I did notice your No5 ish flash cone, Nice work on that one, did you make it in 2 parts and then weld them together for final machining or did you do it all in one piece?
Click to expand...

Yup, two parts welded together... You don't think I cant afford a milling machine do you? :D

...It would be a fortunate coincidence if a mag for a build such as this happened to fit in an SKS as well wouldn't it?... Now that I know I can get it to work I can work on a better mag...

MB
 
Had that done to a bubba'd No4Mk1* many years ago. www.blackrivermilitaria.com
It's a nice conversion that uses Romanian five and ten round single stack magazines.
It has a spring loaded ejector with the bolt slighty modified for it. the magazine well has an aluminum insert to use the AK mag. I only use new BRASS cases. I save the steel ones for the SKS;)

Just looked on their website again and either they don't do that anymore, or I just didn't find it.
 
A friend builds heavy barreled .223 Rem gopher guns on the No4 action. He makes a one piece stock for them and keeps them as single shots with a feeding platform. He will only use a Long Branch or Savage action claiming that they are stronger than the Brit actions.

I shudder when I see them as they are plain butt-ugly and look kinda funny with that skinny receiver screwed onto a truck axle barrel. I must confess that I've never examined them too closely, but they do work fine and they do make the little picket pins/meadow grizzlies/live pop cans fly.
 
MaxQc said:
i love this thread, you make a nice job
how many hours to change your rifle?
Click to expand...

I guess I'm talking to the wall responding to a banned member but WTH...

About ~10hrs to make the reamer, ~5hrs to do the barrel work, ~5hrs to make the mag. That's just WAG time but it was all done in the span of a few weeks...

A little update... All fingers and toes are accounted for... I'm getting consistent ~4" groups with Czech milsurp (I'm having a hard time making out the target at 100yds with irons) and suspect that might improve a bit with a scope.

I have been struggling with hard extraction and have been polishing the chamber with felt bob's/compound and 3M pads after each range session. My last session went about 78rnds before I had a stuck case that required a rod to knock free (all previous stuck cases have been popped out with a screwdriver levered under the rim. I have tried to reshape the extractor and boosted the extractor spring with a wedge of rubber. I'm close, but still have some work to do.

The mags need work, they feed ~85% reliably but occasionally jamb up with bolt over base type feed issues... a proper spring and longer feed lips would likely help, in the end I'll have to make up a new mag body with a proper spring using the lessons learned in the previous attempts. Timing the bolt cycle does have an effect on feeding, it's a shame the plunger style ejector negates the viability of controlled feeding.

So far I have to say that I'm pleased with the results and accuracy has far exceeded my expectations, this I attribute to the five groove barrel as opposed to a two groove and a huge amount of shear luck...

I have some camera pic's of some groups but cant seem to get them off the camera... I'll bring a proper camera to the range next time to document the results...

...and a pic to keep it interesting...

cases.jpg


On the left: cases after first chambering. On the right: Most recent cases after a few polishing sessions. The torn apart bullet was me being bored and wondering if they were steel or copper jacketed (there copper plated steel) and the other is a lucky find, a fired bullet churned up from the burm. It's five groove ccw rifling (is that considered right hand or left hand rifling?) so I think it's from my gun, I don't know how SKS and VZ's are rifled so It might not be mine... An interesting find none the less...

MB
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom