Glass bedded the Enfield ( with report )

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supa

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I am very happy with the results. I tried to bed this new stock myself and Im not gonna lie.. I should have never attempted to do the wood work. :p I bought an Acraglas kit for another project but decided to try it out on this rifle first because it was a lot easier for a trial run.

My question to you guys is there a larger front sight post available then the .45? I guess I changed the something while bedding it and to hit the target I was aiming at almost the bottom of the page :(

here is the results from 100 yards.. I blame the rifle in no way for the 2 fliers.. thats 100% me I'm sure
rsz_1rsz_le100test.jpg
 
Although centre bedding (free floating the barrel) required the use of some glass on competition rifles by regimental weapon techs this was not the norm.

Approved armourer repairs in the draws used wooden blocks held in place with glue and wooden dowels to maintain 4 to 5lbs of foretip pressure. This is how the enfield was designed to shoot. A small block of hardwood was used to replace crushed or damaged wood that had lost contact with the rifle. Worn draws is 85% of the bedding issues with lee enfields and right now the market is frequent with these rifles and are in dire need of the services os someone that knows what they are doing. I have personally fixed four enfields for people by replacing the draws using the prescribed methods used by weapon tech's of the day. This resulted in a very impressive performance increase without losing any long term collector value. Regardless, these were regular working rifles not pieces that come out of the safe once every six months. I have also match centre bedded two rifles for competition, and they shoot brilliantly, but I only did so reluctantly after being asked several times by some eager associates of mine.

Congratulations on bettering the accuracy of your rifle but please do not be suprised if you receive a little ribbing from the others by using glass. It is argueable that you have just bubbad your rifle using unconventional means - by unconventional I mean no longer "As Issued".

If you're interested in learning a bit of how this was done there are a few good articles on milsurp.com. One comes to mind by Peter Laidler, whom is almost legendary in enfields circles. Also, another resource here is Louthepoo - He has damaged wood replacement down to a fine art now.
 
I understand what you are saying and If someone want to say I bubba'ed a rifle that came to me wearing the wrong wood (no2), I would tell them to pound sand. This rifle was never a collector piece. I wanted a shooter, which I now have.

I read all of the work on milsurps in regards to the original wood working for bedding. I tried to follow this the best I could but like I said, wood working and I apparently do mix. I did however bed it to the original specs, I didn't just fill the entire stock.

now I just need to find a higher sight blade
 
Riflechair said:
Although centre bedding (free floating the barrel) required the use of some glass on competition rifles by regimental weapon techs this was not the norm.

Approved armourer repairs in the draws used wooden blocks held in place with glue and wooden dowels to maintain 4 to 5lbs of foretip pressure. This is how the enfield was designed to shoot. A small block of hardwood was used to replace crushed or damaged wood that had lost contact with the rifle. Worn draws is 85% of the bedding issues with lee enfields and right now the market is frequent with these rifles and are in dire need of the services os someone that knows what they are doing. I have personally fixed four enfields for people by replacing the draws using the prescribed methods used by weapon tech's of the day. This resulted in a very impressive performance increase without losing any long term collector value. Regardless, these were regular working rifles not pieces that come out of the safe once every six months. I have also match centre bedded two rifles for competition, and they shoot brilliantly, but I only did so reluctantly after being asked several times by some eager associates of mine.

Congratulations on bettering the accuracy of your rifle but please do not be suprised if you receive a little ribbing from the others by using glass. It is argueable that you have just bubbad your rifle using unconventional means - by unconventional I mean no longer "As Issued".

If you're interested in learning a bit of how this was done there are a few good articles on milsurp.com. One comes to mind by Peter Laidler, whom is almost legendary in enfields circles. Also, another resource here is Louthepoo - He has damaged wood replacement down to a fine art now.
Click to expand...

This is an excellent post, I hope people take it to heart.
I am so tired of hearing people tell of trying a number of different brands of ammunition, to see which ones their rifle "likes."
I have said so many times, a well bedded and tweaked rifle likes all good ammunition.
 
It's very easy to change the harmonics of the Enfield, either 1 or 4, when glass bedding. Looks like something change...if your happy with the result, then it's a success. Yes there are heights above +.45. A +.75 or +.90 just might do the trick. Ron
 
I used glass on a recently acquired Paki No 4 & I think it worked well but I haven't shot it yet. The only reason I went with glass is a really bad wood repair job was in residence & I wasn't sure I had enough good wood to work with. It will be interesting to see how long our bedding jobs last.
 
The problem is that the military tends to be very conservative. They didn't have epoxies in 1873, therefore, epoxies are no good in 2010.

If they had actually HAD epoxy resins before World War Two, then I am certain that they would have USED them. But once War Two became history, the Lee became obsolete and so the priority just wasn't there. "Let's just use what's always worked. It was good enough in The Old Days; it's good enough now."

But I really think that if they had had the stuff, they would have used it.

That said, I use epoxy myself because it is easy to cast into position and is dimensionally stable. I don't 'hog' all the wood out the way it says in the manual; I use just enough to make a thin layer right where it is needed.... and the thinner the better. I don't think it's any different from the old-style method which actually WAS used on some Competition rifles: plastic wood!

Will someone kindly send me my 2 pennies, preferable 1923 or 1925?
 
I'm going to write a primer dedicated to zeroing the .303 rifle. I keep seeing this question posed and I think its about time someone answered it.

Richard
 
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smellie said:
The problem is that the military tends to be very conservative. They didn't have epoxies in 1873, therefore, epoxies are no good in 2010.

If they had actually HAD epoxy resins before World War Two, then I am certain that they would have USED them. But once War Two became history, the Lee became obsolete and so the priority just wasn't there. "Let's just use what's always worked. It was good enough in The Old Days; it's good enough now."

But I really think that if they had had the stuff, they would have used it.

That said, I use epoxy myself because it is easy to cast into position and is dimensionally stable. I don't 'hog' all the wood out the way it says in the manual; I use just enough to make a thin layer right where it is needed.... and the thinner the better. I don't think it's any different from the old-style method which actually WAS used on some Competition rifles: plastic wood!

Will someone kindly send me my 2 pennies, preferable 1923 or 1925?
Click to expand...

Canadian US or British :D or do you want something harder to find

I have a bunch of wood that is beyond repair, unless your looking to splice on a foot of stock to repair the fore end, it is suitable for tankers and other repair bits. All my repairs are done with epoxy glues I'm still looking for a source of brass rod for pinning some repairs. I too try to stick with wood for bedding blocks on any rifles that are not already modified beyond repair, and I do the minimum of work requred. But once its gone its gone, and I do suspect that epoxies were used on enfields later in their lives as competition shooters.
 
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