Rebarreling one of my Enfield No. 4's

[HollowPoint]

I've been gearing up to rebarrel one of my Lee Enfield actions to replace one that I blew to smithereens a while back.

When I say I "blew it to smithereens" I mean I blew the bolt-head to pieces. Fortunately I didn't hurt myself of anyone else. It just left me with a ruined bolt-head.

I've since purchased a replacement bolt-head with the number "0" on it. I figured since I was going to start over with a new barrel, I might as well start with the lowest numbered bolt-head and have it chambered to SAAMI specs rather than military specs.

I don't know if this is logical or anywhere near correct. I do know that when I assembled my number "0" bolt-head and installed it onto my bolt, it didn't fit the way the orignial bolt head did.

Even though the original bolt-head was blown apart it still had a barely readable number "1" on it.

I was under the impression that they were all interchangable and the only difference was that the higher the number, the longer the bolt-head.

How far off-base am I on this? I suspect that the reason the original bolt-head blew up was because of excessive headspace and huge chamber dimension.

I have the machinery to make this number "0" bolt-head work but, I don't want to alter a perfectly good bolt-head when a number "1" bolt-head is easy enough to acquire and not that expensive.

I was just wondering where my reasoning went wrong with the interchangability of these different sized bolt heads. Is this a case where one would only change bolt-heads from a lower number to a higher numbered bolt-head rather than from higher to lower? (ie. from a number "0" to a number "1"--rather than from a number "1" bolt-head to a number "0" bolt-head)

I'd appreciate some input from someone with first-hand knowledge rather than hear-say and guesses.

Thanks in advance for any help that may be offered.

HollowPoint

[fireball168]

I was under the impression that they were all interchangable and the only difference was that the higher the number, the longer the bolt-head.

That's always been my understanding.

The chart I've got shows the difference in the length of the head of the bolt, from the bolt body contact surface (rear shoulder) to the face of the bolt:

0=.620-.625
1=.625-.630
2=.630-.635
3=.635-.640

Who is doing your barrel? I've got a #4 barrel I've been threatening to knock off and send to McGowen as a pattern.

[HollowPoint]

Greetings fireball:

I came across those same dimensions while attempting to research this little dilemma.

I think I may have solved my problem but, I'll have to wait till Saturday to confirm.

When I purchased this "0" bolt-head it was just a stripped bolt-head. I had to buy the ejector, the retaining screw and two different configurations of ejector springs separately.

I may have install the wrong ejector spring. These smaller parts were purchased as a small bunch of No. 4 bolt-head components that were made to fit either the No. 4 or the No. 5 Enfields.

I may have gotten them mixed up.

The smiths name that I hope will have the time to do the work is named Dave Van Horn. He's in Gilbert, Arizona. He's done a couple of other projects for me in the past with very good results.

I spoke to him about a year or two ago about doing this rebarrel job but that was before the economy started going south. I decided at the time that perhaps I'd better hang on to any spending money I had available.

Now I hope to be getting a sufficient tax refund to hopefully pay for this project. Once I get all my ducks-in-a-row I'll call him again to set up an appointment.

One major problem with having him do the work is that he's always really busy. The one major problem with me is that I'm lacking in patience when it come to things like this.

Makes me wish I was more skilled with the lathe and mill.

HollowPoint

[deltaenterprizes]

Go to school like I did when I was 35. The class was full of over 65 year old retired guys and they did good work! Never too old to learn.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

180* out. Don't you want the shortest head to indicate the tightest HS? As headpace grows at somt point you put the next longest bolt head in to shorten HS? 0-1-2-3 . My friend just had his #4 rebarreled , match chamber, match grade Krieger, "0" bolt head, match gunsmith.

Bvt

[HollowPoint]

180* out. Don't you want the shortest head to indicate the tightest HS? As headpace grows at somt point you put the next longest bolt head in to shorten HS? 0-1-2-3 . My friend just had his #4 rebarreled , match chamber, match grade Krieger, "0" bolt head, match gunsmith.

Bvt

Greetings Mr. Trollwhack:

Exactly; that was my original intention by purchasing the number "0" bolt-head replacement.

As I indicated, this "0" bolt-head doesn't screw into my bolt to the same depth as the original number "1" bolt-head. As a result, the bolt with the number "0" bolt-head installed will not even go into the bolt slot in the action let alone the locked bolt position. That was my main reason for this post/inquiry.

It's still Saturday morning right now and I've just finished doing all the chores that needed doing this weekend. Now I can play around with this bolt-head dilemma.

Hopefully it's nothing more than a bad assembly job by yours truly. At the very worst I'll just buy a number "1" bolt-head. That should fix the problem.

HollowPoint

[HollowPoint]

Problem solved.

I measured my newly acquired number "0" bolt-head and found it to have the dimensions of the number "1" bolt-head. The number "0" bolt-head measured .627" and my original number "1" bolt-head measured .630". (Go figure)

I guess it must have been made on an early Monday morning or a late Friday night. I suppose machinists must have bad days too.

Anyway, in order to get it to fit properly I just lightly cleaned off the metal burrs on the mouth of the bolt itself. I did nothing with the bolt-head.

My problem was that I couldn't screw it in so that the ridge along the back of the bolt and the ridge on the back of the bolt-head were aligned. Without these ridges being aligned, it was impossible to slide the complete bolt into the action.

As far as installing the wrong ejector spring; it appears that either spring would have worked. Now everything is right with the world again. (Unless you happen to live in country of Chile right now. God Bless those folks. I know I'll do what I can. Same for the folks on the Pacific islands with a tsunami headed their way.)

HollowPoint