Who can rebarrel an Enfield No 4 Mk I?

[Ballistics in Scotland]

A useful aid to making your own scope bases would be a laser boresighter duplicating the .303 cartridge. They are available cheaply on eBay.

[screwcutter]

Blackwater,
I am one of the nuttier Enfield guys; I wish I could do the barrel work for you, the legal aspects. WWW searching should turn up some one to help you. A custom reamer to fit available brass would be a good idea since you are considering a .30 cal barrel. Let me know if you want details/ideas on the scope mount.
John,
I’m not sure, I had a local guy park it.
mr

[Blackwater]

Thanks, Screwcutter. I may wind up consulting with you. Do you make a mount for the No. 4 that would let me mount a scope low? I've just always wanted one of those old "British Sporting Rifles" on an Enfield action, and have had my #4 for close to 15 years now, and haven't found a 'smith nearby who'd tackle it. Now, I figure it's now or never in pulling the trigger on it, finally. I've only handled a few of those old BSR's, and every time I have, I got that, "Yeah! I could SHOOT this thing!" feeling, and as Gene Hill advised in picking shotguns, when you find a gun like that, just hand the guy behind the counter a check, and let HIM fill it out.

Goodsteel and I have made a trade on a gun, now, which is a big relief to me, actually, and should do exactly the kind of thing I want to do, which is to sally forth with a mental image of myself being an heir to what some of those old Brit white hunters in Africa's early days did with those rifles. Not many lions here in the swamp, but an old man's imagination can do wonders IF he's just foolish enough! HAR! It'll also be a good training aid to the grandboys to maybe not be quite so taken in by the glossy magazines and the glitzy but infinitely "cheaper" stuff they call rifles now.

I know it's foolish, really, but just don't care. I grew up reading about the adventures of those old African WH's, and I just WANT a gun reminiscent of what they might have used. It's not whether I get a deer any more, but HOW I go about doing it that matters these days, and I'm happy as a lark! May do some stock work on it, to get it to suit me just right, and have a 'smith friend over in SC who has a "pattern stock" he's been neglecting for years now, that's kind'a like a cross between the old BSR's with a little German influence (thin, schnabble forend) and I'll be doing my best to get him off the pot and finish it so he can have some pantographed out as semi-fins. If not, may have to pay him a visit and put in a little work on it myself! He and I think enough alike that I think we can achieve something passable.

I guess a real gun nut is never truly satisfied unless he's working on a project of SOME kind? Sure seems to work that way with me, at least.

[HollowPoint]

I re-barreled my own No.4 Mk1. I'd never done a re-barreling job before so I spent alot of time researching it before diving in.

I'm neither a gunsmith nor a machinist but I'd always wanted to try. All I had to work with at the time was a cheap little Grizzly 9x19 metal lathe. I looked for the cheapest 303 barrel I could find but the cheapest ones were way out of my budget range for this project.

In the end I went with a 308 bore'd barrel cause they were the cheapest of all; price-wise, not quality-wise. I turned down the neck of the 303 reamer I'd bought and just re-chambered my barrel to 30-303 caliber.

Because of my inexperience in turning a barrel tang with a shoulder that matched the factory Enfield shoulder and head spacing, I decided to use the Savage-Barrel-Nut method. This made it child's-play to get the correct head spacing. The down side was that I also had to make a barrel nut; which wasn't all that hard. It was a twenty-eight inch pre-turned barrel that I bought so I used the two inch section that I cut off of this barrel as the metal stock to make the barrel nut.

When I finished and tested my new barrel, I found that it wasn't any better or worse than the accuracy I had been getting out of this same Enfield action. This was good news to me because, when I did this re-barreling job -even though I did my research- I knew next to nothing about such thing as far as hands on experience. At the time, I did't even use a Range-Rod to index or center off my bore. I indexed on the outside diameter of my barrel. I'm just lucky it turned out as good as it did.

Now that I know more about re-barreling, I've had my eye out for another 30 caliber barrel to do it all over again the correct way.

HollowPoint

[leebuilder]

Hi Blackwater. I have rebarreled many, enfields, no1s and no4s. I learned by trial and terror, started by rechambering no1s and no4s mainly to reset the headspace in hopes of improving accuracy. So far havent had any complaints. Built a few 22, 17hmrs and 45acp on the no4 action. Made all my own tools and gauges.
any question please ask.
be well

[Blackwater]

Thanks to you all, gentlemen. It's amazing how all the guys who love the old Brit Enfields seem to be real "gentlemen" in the finest old English sense of the word. That's something that's really hard to find these days. We all know guys like you are out there, but you just don't get any press or attract any attention, which is probably good judgment on your part, of course, but it's really great to see guys of the old school still plugging along doing what's now considered "strange" stuff still.

I've done pretty much all types of gunsmithing for myself and friends for many years, but rebarreling was the one thing I've never really had the chance to do, and I've always declined to try to do it by hand, the old "country boy" way. I've had a few friends who've done it, but have just declined to try for myself.

I finally got around to making myself my little version of a 1930's 1903 Springfield sporter with what I'm pretty proud of for a stock. It's not quite what I thought I wanted, but with these things, you reach a point where the demands on your time and resources reaches a point where you call it "done." That stock is what got me a job doing some part time gunsmithing at a local shop under an Ackley trained and really good 'smith. He was supposed to have been dead 20 years ago, but is still plugging along over in SC, and we talk often on the phone. Went to visit with him a couple of months back, and wound up with one of his VERY nice Mauser sporters that I'd wanted an example of for so very long - since I was about 13, really.

All the off the shelf sporters today just leave me kind'a unfulfilled, but guns like this, if they don't please anyone else in the whole world, have come to please me immensely. That old Springfield I did is awaiting my sending it off for some checkering. The neuropathy in my hands now kind'a precluded my doing it myself. I have the tools, but in my old age have FINALLY succumbed to my better judgment in such things. Too much work and sweat in that old stock to muss it up with my frailties now. C'est la' vie, I guess?

Now that I've got that nice #4 in process and on the way, I may well get that #4 of mine rebarreled and restocked and generally cleaned up, too. After all, I DO have two grandsons! Best excuse I've had for this kind of thing in my life, and it'd be just foolish to waste a good excuse like that to spend a little play money, right? It'll take longer than ever now, but maybe being occupied will keep me out'a trouble, and maybe even out'a jail? HAR! Getting crotchety really frees a man up from a lot of "normal" restraints, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it! I highly recommend it to anyone who'll employ their sensibilities thusly. Just "good, clean fun!"

[leadman]

The CMP will only work on US military arms last I read.