L.E. No1 blthead and headspace

I am sorry if I hijack this tread but this reminds me, my Bro's no1 has a headspace problem, how is this fixed? is it worth the trouble?
And could this be the reason that the gun does not group?
Thanks
 
"...Trial And error?..." Yep. No. 1 bolt heads are not numbered. You'll need a handful of bolt heads(if you can find them), a No-Go and a Field headspace guage. Then try 'em one after the other until the bolt does not close on the No-Go, preferably. If it does, try the Field. If it closes on a Field it's not safe to shoot. There's no need to remove the extractor. Just slip the guage under it and gently close the bolt. Mind you, if you can find a bunch of bolt heads, they'll likely not have an extractor anyway. Your existing extractor, assuming it's ok, should be fine.
Headspace doesn't have anything to do with accuracy. Start by slugging your brother's barrel to see exactly what diameter the bore is. If it's greater than .315", it's too far gone to bother with the expense and time required to find a bunch of bolt heads.
No amount of any kind of resizing the cases will help either. The .303 headspaces on the rim, so the shoulder means nothing.
 
Seems like alot of work for a $70 no1 heavy bubba'd
How do we get rid of it?
I do not want to put it up for sale as some other smuck will be screwed over.
What piss me off most it that I bought it at wholesale and I figger that they should have at least checked the head space.
 
Boer Sun, if it"s as badly bubbaed as you seem to hint at, and if the bore is oversize to the point of accuracy loss, then strip off all of the useable unbubbaed parts and sell them on the EE in this site. Have you checked the muzzle (damaged crown)? Have you tried putting a little pressure between the foreend and the barrel? Some of these rifles just didn't shoot well, even from new, you should be able to recoup at least 1/2 of your $70 from the parts, there are a few people on this site that seem to buy them up on a regular basis to complete project rifles or replace rusty or damaged parts. As for true north, sunray just gave you an excellent description on how to check headspace. If you don't want to go to the expense of head space gauges, you can measure the rim of a cartridge and shim it to specs. I've used brass shim material for this several times with different rifles, works well. As for headspace not haveing an effect on accuracy, I politely disagree, the more headspace you have the more the cartridge has a tendency to tip in the chamber, no the extractor isn't tight enough to hold it that hard against the bolt face. Oversize chambers don't help either. Accuracy problems may arise from other causes such as weak fireing pin springs causeing poor ignition times, pitted or short pins can also cause this. Don't forget ageing ammunition with deteriorateing primers from poor storage conditions. How badly fouled or pitted is the bore etc The list goes on and on until you have a good point to start from, and have eliminated the obvious you just don't know. If the rifle is in nice shape and has performed well until recently, then you have another problem than headspace unless you've used some horrendous overloads and set back the locking lugs, No1 receivers won't take high pressure loads well, seldom KABOOM, but do stretch easily. bearhunter
 
#1 Lee Enfields do not have a code for length of bolt head that I have seen.
Each bolt head should be measured with a micrometer. The shorts are around 0.628 range.
Mediums around 0.632 range.
Longs around 0.636 range.
And extra long around 0.642 range.
You should be able to find someone in your area with .303 British headspace guages and then you also find someone with different size bolt heads. I used to have lots myself.
Good luck.
 
I seem to recal reading somewhere that A "U" marked boltheads were so marked because they is differed in specification - usually used to compensate for a bolt body that was misthreaded. I once had a bolt body missing the head and picked one up marked with a "U" - it simply would not line up properly. A machinist friend re-threaded the bolt body (deeper) so that it would align.

John - where are you?
 
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Well fired cases comes out distorted so that's why I figger the headspace is bad.
If we sell it for parts how do we get it "unregestered" cause what's the point of having a regestered gun in your name that's misssing all the parts?
 
Un registering will require destruction and a verifier. But before you do that lets make sure that it is not one or the desireable rifles, like a LSA.Co, or SSA/NRF rifle. Whats stamped on the reciever.
 
Un registering will require destruction and a verifier. But before you do that lets make sure that it is not one or the desireable rifles, like a LSA.Co, or SSA/NRF rifle. Whats stamped on the reciever
Click to expand...
No as far as I can tell from the markings it was made in england and I also see RFI marks on it so I assume that it was refurbished in India.
 
Boer Seun - excess headspace is a situation that exists only with respect to factory ammunition. You can prepare handloads which headspace on the shoulder, and which eliminate any excessive tolerances. Whether it would be worth going to this extra trouble is a judgement call.
 
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