My new LE "32 carbine" squirrel gun

Evanguy

Evanguy

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so i was sorting my Lee Enfield parts the other day and felt the urge to build a rifle from a few of the parts, something small, light and chambered in a small but potent handgun round. looking around and only having old Lee Enfield barrels i knew it had to be chambered in something 30 or 32 cal, i went and checked through my 30 cal brass and settled with a rimmed case for ease of head spacing and also stright wall for ease of cutting the chamber. the 32 H&R mag.

the receiver was bought as a barreled action a few years ago for the "H" barrel that was installed on it, it is a lithgow receiver. the wood is off my sporter LEC rifles I've been restoring, the sights are off an old rusty bore lithgow barrel, the bolt it non matching but head space it set at 0.003", the mag was given to me to use as a "huntin' mag" i have it on this rifle to make it look complete.

i ended up with a no4 barrel that was set setback a turn (unknown to me at the time of the trade) and didnt index properly with the receiver any more, so i cut the bayo lugs off behind the sight lugs incase i need to fix a cut no4 barrel. and i stole 12" from the center of the barrel to make a sleeve with. i used an old no1 barrel i had drilled for 410 but made the chamber a bit big my a mastake. and drill that 12 inches deep at 1/2" and then bored the knox form at 17.5mm for 45mm deep,

i turned the 12" section of No4 barrel to 1/2" dia except for the first 45mm i turned it at 17.45mm (room for solder) and left to bands ( you can see in the pic) at 17.51 for a press fit. after making sure it all worked and i was happy with it i tin/lead soldered it into place, the end of the sleeve has a rad cut on it and the whole sleeve set head space off the muzzle end of it where the barrel went from 1/2" to .410", then using a .632" lee bolt head i have the 0.003" head space

i cut the barrel to 18.25" (only 12" of rifling in the sleeve) and turned the end of it down to 14.51mm and tapped (hammered) the no1 front sight on,

i shot 10 hand loads so far, that's all the brass i had on hand, i need to order 100 more soon, i was using a 95gr cast bullet over 2.5gr of tite group, they grouped well, (2" group at 25m shooting off hand) im sure i could do better if i took my time or used a rest, i just wated to check the sights out, and they were good i just need to drift the front blade a bit.about 2" to the right at 25m

i do want to try the Lee 155gr or 160gr .312 bullet with this rifle, after a i finish off the few hundred 95gr bullets i already have cast

now i need to wait for dies and brass to show up so i can take it to the range for some good times.

ohh and the rifles weighs exactly 5.0 pounds and has an OAL of 36.5" and has a LOP of 12.5"
and i think I'm going to install the mag cutoff as well, the mag doesn't work any way and the rifle would look more complete i think, since the wood is cutout for it.

it still needs a few parts blued and cleaned up, but I'm going to shoot it as is for a while. i also have the scope mount that this rifle is drilled and tapped for.


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The concept is cool, but the execution of this project is dangerously flawed.:sok2

To fix a barrel to a receiver using only soft solder & without even using a cross pin or two is an invitation to a painful failure. The .32 H&R runs at around 20,000 psi and if you want to toss a "heavy for the cartridge" bullet weight from that setup, you can all too easily jump up into pressures above 50,000 psi and plumbing solder ain't worth a crap for this kind of job. In other words, don't even think of firing the .327 Fed out of this build, as it is double+ what the H&R round is factory loaded with. Yer holding a potential bomb mate!

It ain't hard to do a decent conversion on a Lee Enfield for folks who know their way around a lathe and have at least a proper grasp of metal strengths & working processes. I did my ones using the Brewer (Savage) method of locking the barrel to the action which is the best way for setting up headspace and allowing for easy barrel swaps on Lee Enfields as well as many other actions.

My one in .32-40 Winchester.
View attachment 98857

My other one in .45 ACP.
View attachment 98858
 
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Thanks for the replys guys, im pretty excited to use it once i get some more brass to reload. I hope to get a range report soon. Time to go email rustywood.

EDIT: ooh i missed the first line about the barrel being held on by solder, its being held on by the lee enfield knox form and i bored out the LE barrel and made in insert for it. The insert is totally inside the LE barrel and the muzzle of the insert makes contact with a shoulder within the barrel, and the chamber end is a press fit into the LE knox form. The pics show it well.

Posted ealier but missed the part about the barrel being held on by solder: (edit end)
Also about the lead solder, thats just to keep it from moving is all. Nothing to do with strength, i under stand how weak it is, i could have used silver solder but i want to be able to take it apart a bit easier then that. People use chamber inserts all the time, just sitting loose in the chamber and the bullet still ingauges the rifles rifling, this is its own insert with its own rifling, its only soldered in place to my POI doesnt change around on me like what happens with most chamber inserts. I could have just left it free floating and it would be fine. Chiappa makes 2 rifles with 8 pistol caliber inserts that are totally free floating and can be removed by hand. So not even a press fit.

The muzzle of the insert is what it the whole insert "head spaces" off like lots of different rounds do, the case mouth.

Im also hand loading for this rifle, at about 12,000 psi and i cant see pressures getting that high with a 155gr cast bullet at 800-1050fps max. I dont plan on firing factory loads but i honeslty see no issue if i wanted too. There is no where to buy 32hr around here anyway, and i love reloading and casting my own bullets.

Although i do thank you for the warning. Your rifles look good. Real good. I would love to do something like that one day but for yesterday, i had about 4 hours machining and another 2 assembing the rifle. I just wanted a nice sunday project, i wanted to start and finish the same day. So its kinda hacked together with old parts and not nearly as nice as your rifles, but i like it

EDIT:
Ive also made barrel nuts out of cut lee enfield barrels knox forms the same as in your pics but propper LE knox forms. And then thread the od of a take off barrel to install. Then the knox indexes properly and you can set head space with the barrel and its interferince fit. I even just bought a machine tap and die in 13/16-20 for doing that. Since ive been doing so many lately, but this was somthing else i wanted to do.......
 
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SHELL SHUCKER said:
The concept is cool, but the execution of this project is dangerously flawed.:sok2

To fix a barrel to a receiver using only soft solder & without even using a cross pin or two is an invitation to a painful failure. The .32 H&R runs at around 20,000 psi and if you want to toss a "heavy for the cartridge" bullet weight from that setup, you can all too easily jump up into pressures above 50,000 psi and plumbing solder ain't worth a crap for this kind of job. In other words, don't even think of firing the .327 Fed out of this build, as it is double+ what the H&R round is factory loaded with. Yer holding a potential bomb mate!

It ain't hard to do a decent conversion on a Lee Enfield for folks who know their way around a lathe and have at least a proper grasp of metal strengths & working processes. I did my ones using the Brewer (Savage) method of locking the barrel to the action which is the best way for setting up headspace and allowing for easy barrel swaps on Lee Enfields as well as many other actions.

My one in .32-40 Winchester.
View attachment 98857

My other one in .45 ACP.
View attachment 98858
Click to expand...

How is the OP's barrel fixed to the receiver using only soft solder?
 
Oh, I see that now in the pics & Evanguy's clarification that the project is a chamber insert, soldered into the original barrel and that barrel is screwed back onto the receiver. This negates my fear & misunderstanding on how the barrel is fitted to the receiver.

Good project Evanguy. It'll be nice to see the results with the heavier boolits.:cool:

Note to self: Take longer to figure out what folks are trying to describe before responding & don't be half gooned at the time.:redface:f:P:
 
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SHELL SHUCKER said:
Oh, I see that now in the pics & Evanguy's clarification that the project is a chamber insert, soldered into the original barrel and that barrel is screwed back onto the receiver. This negates my fear & misunderstanding on how the barrel is fitted to the receiver.

Good project Evanguy. It'll be nice to see the results with the heavier boolits.:cool:

Note to self: Take longer to figure out what folks are trying to describe before responding & don't be half gooned at the time.:redface:f:P:
Click to expand...

I'm glad i could clear it up for you and yeah ill have range reports for this once some more brass and some reloading dies show up. and i will try the heavy cast bullets at the same range trip. ive played around with real heavy bullets in the 303b case at sub sonic speeds, im hoping the 160gr will stabilize with the barrels rifling pretty good.



Leveractionjunkie, Thanks i thought it was a cool project too, i was so excited about it i had to make a thread about it!!


i hope to get a sling on the rifle also i may looking into modifying the mag so i can feed 32hr from it, well build an insert for the mag, is probably how it will go
 
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