Restoration of a .22 Short Rifle Mk II... found in a creek

[louthepou]

Hello folks,

This is a duplicate of a post I made on milsurps.com, but I figured it could be of interest here. If only to prove that often, even if things look hopeless, there's reason to stay hopeful.


Initial post, last November:


An acquaintance has trusted me with doing a bit of work on this not-too-common Lee Enfield. It was found, I am not kidding, in a creek in Ontario. Apparently there was a training air base not too far from this creek; so, it may explain why a Lee Enfield .22 trainer was found in this place.

Strangely enough, it's not as bad as one would think after spending God knows how many years under water.

My goal here will be to do as little as possible to the rifle, but to make sure rust is dealt with. I will clean the bore. Yes the intention is to make it fire again... There's even rifling in the bore.

From what I know (that's very little) about this particular variation of .22 trainer, the rear handguard is wrong (it's a no1mk3-like handguard), and there should have been a rear sight guard there too. Rear sight leaf is non-matching, but the bolt does match the receiver.

I'm simply amazed.

Ok, here's hoping screws will cooperate. Anxious to see how bad (or nice) the metal is under the wood!

lou

 

[louthepou]

First update, mid-December:


After letting Liquid Wrench seep into the screws thread, I carefully worked on them and to my delight, every screw did cooperate.

These two arsenal repairs on each side of the trigger guard came off but one did not survive (dang)

Even this came apart easily (ish). Both the screw and the pin came off without excessive force.

interestingly the forend is number matched, but stamped inside the barrel channel:

Not sure about the meaning of this;

So, off to a good start. Cleaning will begin sometime this week, or next weekend.

 

[louthepou]

Final report, from today

Took the time over the past two weeks to do two things:
1. Spend the first week of the holidays fighting a cold, and
2. Spend some time during the second week to work on this rifle!

Things went rather well, but it took time. I cleaned each part individually. From the extractor retaining screw to the front volley sight arm, not forgetting the rear sight leaf spring retaining screw Everything was taken apart and cleaned.

The repair of the forend, around the trigger guard, went well too. I had to replace one small piece (probably 1/2" long), but it's now solid enough and should last a few decades.

From inside:

From outside, stained:

The bore was bad. Really bad. My normal cleaning rod (which usually goes through a .22 bore without a glitch) initially got stuck in the bore, because there wasn't enough clearance. So I began by plugging the muzzle and filling the bore with a de-rusting solution, which opened things up a bit. Then, I switched to bore cleaner (filled up the bore for a few hours as well). After a few hours of brushing, there was some rifling visible! And pitting. There is pitting in there, we can't really avoid this.

But, you know what? It shoots well enough to say: it's alive!

Further more, testing it in my backyard with CCI "quiet" .22 shorts (because neighbours and so forth), I am very happy to report that, at about 25 yards, we have rasonable grouping!

My "backyard range" (target is in the middle, behind the bird feeder - not the one on the right)

That was a great, fun project.

 

[saltednutz]

Juuhhy

 

[Butcherbill]

I'm surprised that it was in as good of shape as it was, it looks like it cleaned up well. Good job saving it and yeah, not a bad group for a rifle found in a creek!

 

[BlackPowderBurner]

Wow, very lucky it sat in fresh not salt water all these years! Even still, it's a miracle the wood is in not all rotten away! Good on you for bringing it back to life.

 

[kjohn]

You are the man!

 

[VanIsleCam]

Super cool - thanks for posting Lou!

 

[bros]

Very nice Lou if I lived closer I could keep you busy for a while!!!

 

[cyclone]

.... But, you know what? It shoots well enough to say: it's alive! ....

That rifle is lucky that you were the one who found it!

 

[donor]

After seeing some of your work(and owning one) I'm sure you can make this rifle bark again.Lots of good luck does help as well ,or maybe it's a good karma that guides your hands?

Very good result.

 

[XRCD011]

Amazing find and restoration, well done. That is one lucky rifle to have been found by someone who could see it being of value and history and not rushed into some daft amnesty for a POS camera, then passed to you to make the magic happen at restoring.

 

[GunsNotPuns]

Nicely done on the restoration work and preserving history!

 

[collector67]

Awesome work as usual, Lou!

 

[bjmurata]

I love a happy ending to a story, outstanding work you have done there to get that little beauty cracking again.

 

[gorby]

Inspiring read. Must be so satisfying to shoot!

 

[Louis]

Did you find it with metal detector ?
You can try electrolysis derusting to eleminate rust...like museum...

Nice job, I do the same with an old .303 long branch who was stored in a cellar behind washing machine between 20-30 years...
Bolt was jammed...a lot of pleasure!

 

[tungngroove2000]

Only you Lou, only you! Great work to save that one. Well done!

 

[fingers284]

sure don't think that gun was in the water all that long...wouldn't surprise me if some kids didn't remove it from some basement or barn not that long ago then dumped it out of fear of being caught with it. Rightful owner might not even know its missing.

 

[Magellann]

Congrats! Thats a nice job to get it working again, I'm surprised it held up as well as it did after some time in the creek.