Thread 'Enfield Catastrophic Failure' …

BadgerDog

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Thread 'Enfield Catastrophic Failure' …

We've had a very interesting thread evolving over the last few days and since it related to a possibly serious safety issue with old Enfields, I thought I'd post a link to it here, so anyone who owns DP or ZF marked rifles may be advised as to what happened.

A member posted he had purchased a mint Enfield which had some white bands across it and DP stencilled on some locations. He apparently cleaned it indicating it had a beautiful bore, then went off to fire it with a friend. He said the first round fired caused the receiver to explode, which tore off half his left thumb.

Enfield Catastrophic Failure…http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=25597

The member emailed pics of the rifle to us in it's post shooting damaged state, which we added to his posts later in the thread.

Hope the discussion prevents the same thing from happening to others.

Regards,
Badger
 
Within the last month there was a thread on CGN about accidental discharges with Lee Enfields. The original poster had a discharge when he cycled the safety to fire. The collective wisdom remotely dagnosed that he needed the replace the safety components and maybe the striker.
 
I feel a bit of empathy for "Old Joe" but when you see the huge hole drilled into the left side of the receiver, that should have spelled it out clearly. I can see why he lost part of his left thumb. He is very fortunate not to have lost his whole hand.

Why would anyone buy a DP marked rifle and restore it when you can have perfectly working "BNP" marked beauties ? Just my two cents worth and it ain't worth losing your thumb over.
 
DP rifles

Does anyone look through the barrel and check the bore any more? How do you miss a couple of honking big holes in the chamber if you do a simple safety precaution?

This looks like incompetence all the way around. The Dealer, the Gunsmith and Old Joe. Should make a lot of Lawyers happy though, and they can try to put the blame on the others.
 
Seems like a catastrophic people failure, rather than a gun failure. A DP effectively becomes a non-gun and shouldn't be fired. There are reasons why someone inspected it and classified it as suitable for drill and not for shooting.
 
buffdog said:
Does anyone look through the barrel and check the bore any more? How do you miss a couple of honking big holes in the chamber if you do a simple safety precaution?

This looks like incompetence all the way around. The Dealer, the Gunsmith and Old Joe. Should make a lot of Lawyers happy though, and they can try to put the blame on the others.
Click to expand...

Yes, but the fellow who put the firing pin in and the new bolt head is going to pay the price.... Century said on their web site the firing pin is broken off and the firing pin hole is welded shut...
 
I'd strongly urge anyone here who isn't on milsurps to join and particularly to read Peter Laidlers comments on both DP and ZF marked Enfields before venturing out with rifles thusly marked. This gentleman is very lucky under the circumstances.
 
ENEFGEE has a excellent point.

As far as I know, Captain Laidler is the only person actually "in the know" to have taken the time to write all of this down and make it available. His writings alone are an education concerning the care, management, repair and inspection of the Lee Rifle..... and this information is available from NO other writer I have knowledge of.
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smellie said:
As far as I know, Captain Laidler is the only person actually "in the know" to have taken the time to write all of this down and make it available. His writings alone are an education concerning the care, management, repair and inspection of the Lee Rifle..... and this information is available from NO other writer I have knowledge of.
.
Click to expand...

After reading the entire thread and viewing the pics provided, I think it's a case of inexperience on the shooter's part, combined with him trusting the representations of a gunsmith, whom one normally assumes knows what they're doing. ;)

It's an unfortunate accident and the only good news is that it could have been worse.

Again the point of spreading the word is to make sure new collectors who perhaps aren't that experienced with firearms and of course, specifically new Enfield owners, understand the need to acquire some reasonable knowledge about firearms and the differences between the various genres. They all operate roughly the same, but the differences you don't realize can get you hurt, or worse. At a minimum, I believe a collector should utilize personal instruction from other collectors or reading qualified material, in order to gain the knowledge to strip & assemble and perform a rudimentary safety inspection on his own, before he goes wandering off to a range and starts blasting away.

Besides Captain Laidler and Dr, Roger Payne who are currently members of the Advisory Panelhttp://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=23 and post regularly in the Lee Enfield Collectors Forumhttp://www.milsurps.com/forumdisplay.php?f=72, within the last few weeks Mr. Ian Skennerton (click here)http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=25002, has also become member of our Advisory Panelhttp://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=23.

We hope to see him posting to help out Enfield owners as well, although I think he has a long way to go to catch up with Peter ladler, who has over 2,000 posts and has the second highest poster counthttp://www.milsurps.com/misc.php?do=topposters of all time. :D

Anyway, bottom line, please be careful out there folks and I really would hate to read about any more of these kinds of incidents, particularly in regards to the Enfield rifle, which I think is one of the best and safest designs of old milsurps available to collectors. I was astonished to read about this incident, but I do have to give the collector a lot of credit for having the courage to speak and post pics of his accident. I conversed with him via email and he's very embarrassed, but he wanted to get the message out even at his own expense, just so importance of safety remained high, particularly for new collectors.

Regards,
Badger
 
People like this are the reason there are warning labels on everything.

You'd think a label stating that; "Do not fire a DP rifle with giant holes on either side of the receiver" would not be required to plaster all over a rifle, as it would be pretty easy not to do... but I guess there's one in every village, eh?

Chalk it up to inexperience and a lesson learned. I'm glad the guy is OK and had the fortitude to post about his mistake online for the benefit of others.
 
I can see how it happened. I blame the seller to a degree, because he's deliberately refurbishing DP'd guns.

However - from the sounds of it, this is possibly how it happend:
1) This was the only gun that had the reciever drilled out of the 20 referred to, which was missed by the seller - backed up by statements that none of the other dp'd guns seen have the demil job.
2) The gunsmith may have only ever see the bolts of the gun. Why bring 10 guns when you can just bring 10 bolts to be worked on? Therefore, the gunsmith wouldn't have known anything.
3) Normally DP guns with the chamber drilled have a big steel rod welded or peened into them to prevent this exact problem.
4) The buyer didn't disassemble and inspect his gun minutely
5) The buyer didn't know what to look for in his gun. He doesn't seem to know enfields, so has no reference to what is normal and what isn't
6) the buyer inspected the bore by placing a light in the reciever and looking from the muzzle - you can't see the chamber walls doing that.... or his eyesight isn't good and just thought it was a shadow.

So, who's at fault? I would say the seller to a degree because he missed that one, but also the buyer because he shot a gun without inspecting it. I'm sure this will come back to bite me one day, but you've always got to watch out for yourself, because no one else is.
 
H Wally said:
I can see how it happened. I blame the seller to a degree, because he's deliberately refurbishing DP'd guns.


3) Normally DP guns with the chamber drilled have a big steel rod welded or peened into them to prevent this exact problem.
Click to expand...

I have seen a lot of DP guns, and have never seen one with a rod down the barrel. DP meant drill purpose. They were not talking about the left-right-left kind of drill, but rather the drills of loading, unloading, dealing with IA and stoppages etc. That means running drill rounds into the chamber.

Dp is more of a commonwealth term so it is unfortunate that an American gunsmith would not have recognised the meaning if it was stamped on the bolts. The seller, however, if he read the sales paragraph from the distributor, should have heeded the warning.
 
stencollector said:
I have seen a lot of DP guns, and have never seen one with a rod down the barrel. DP meant drill purpose. They were not talking about the left-right-left kind of drill, but rather the drills of loading, unloading, dealing with IA and stoppages etc. That means running drill rounds into the chamber.

Dp is more of a commonwealth term so it is unfortunate that an American gunsmith would not have recognised the meaning if it was stamped on the bolts. The seller, however, if he read the sales paragraph from the distributor, should have heeded the warning.
Click to expand...

And, note that the firing pin from Century(as per their statement on line) was broken and the bolt head firing pin hole welded.... Who ever did the mod to allow this rifle to fire is to blame for undoing a dewat, Yes blame on the user for their ignorance to a point, but when you dewat a firearm and someone undoes the work they are making an unsafe situation all round....

I am thankful that no one was injured further. We all can learn a lesson with regards to firearms... Get it checked pout first.

Pete
 
stencollector said:
I have seen a lot of DP guns, and have never seen one with a rod down the barrel. DP meant drill purpose. They were not talking about the left-right-left kind of drill, but rather the drills of loading, unloading, dealing with IA and stoppages etc. That means running drill rounds into the chamber.

Dp is more of a commonwealth term so it is unfortunate that an American gunsmith would not have recognised the meaning if it was stamped on the bolts. The seller, however, if he read the sales paragraph from the distributor, should have heeded the warning.
Click to expand...

I meant pinned across the chamber. The two DP'd actions I've had (p17 and no4 mk1), had the pin across the chamber, as well as another cgn'ers P14 have had this. I figured that was standard.
 
H Wally said:
I meant pinned across the chamber. The two DP'd actions I've had (p17 and no4 mk1), had the pin across the chamber, as well as another cgn'ers P14 have had this. I figured that was standard.
Click to expand...
Were these DPs or deactivated guns? The pin across the chamber is a requirement of deactivation.

I could see the chambers pinned for cadet use as parade rifles. But for the true reason of a drill purpose rifle, the chamber must be open.
 
The P-14s and Mk. III Rosses from India were drilled and pinned. A LOT of the P-14s (only barrels were touched) were used for conversion into sporting rifles.
The rifle pictured in the Milsurps thread was marked GRI 1944, so I assume it came from the subcontinent. Who knows where, when and why it was drilled, and had the bolthead welded?
I wonder if the "gunsmith" was only given the bolt to repair, and never saw the whole rifle? Those holes were pretty prominent, hard to miss.
 
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