lee enfield trigger work

[nekshot]

I have a gun that has a action that is identical to my jungle carbine (no markings on reciever). Question- does any one have wisdom how to make trigger break at end like a piece of glass breaking or do I go for the Huber replacement trigger right from go? I like the 2 step military trigger it simply feels like pushing a noodle thru a hole when it breaks!!

[docone31]

Go for the Huber.
Simple fast and it works.

[W.R.Buchanan]

neck: I have worked these a bunch. The way the trigger is set up it is a two stage but it can be modded to be single stage. But there is no need for that as the double pull is advantageous in dealing with the inevitable creep the design inherently has.

To be safe there must be some creep.

The "bent",,, the vee shaped piece, interacts with the sear on the cocking piece. The angle of the sear face has a great influence on the amount of pull. If you watch the cocking piece as you pull the trigger you will notice that it moves back slightly. This is caused by the arc, that the tip of the bent follows, when interacting with the angle on the sear.

The point of the bent moves thru an arc as it slides off the sear . The Sear Face must be at an angle that is NOT tangent to that arc to be safe.

In other words the sear face angle must intersect the arc at the tip of the bent, or else the bent will slip off the sear and be unsafe. The Cocking Piece must move to the rear some small amount while pulling the trigger in order to be safe. There is no way around this.

The closer the sear angle is to being tangent to the bents arc the lighter the trigger pull.

You can also modify the amount of engagement between the bent and the sear. Most have the bent about .030 above the bottom edge of the sear. That is the amount of creep you will have in the end.

Stoning the Sear flat is important as they almost all have a groove in them from having the bolts slammed closed repeatedly. That little groove also increases pull weight as you must jump the tip of the bent out of it during your final stage of pull. A dab of good grease is also part of the process. I use Vaseline but anything will work. Nothing,,, is not good!.

Part of the problem with increasing the angle of the sear (which lowers the trigger pull weight) is that you invariably stone thru the rather limited Case Hardening. The striker is made of super soft steel. They are also about $9 at Sarco or Numrich so if you screw it up it's not the end of the world.

You can also cut a few turns off the striker spring.(also a cheap part) That will also reduce the trigger pull, however if you intend the gun to be used for hunting dangerous game then having positive ignition would be senior to reduced trigger pull weight.

The trigger system in the Enfield rifle is about as simple as you can get. About one click above that of a simple crossbow or spear gun. The fact that they are this simple is one of the reasons the guns go bang everytime,,, under just about any circumstance. Good thing if you are betting your life on it.

Here's a pic of the whole system, and some write up as well.

Both my gun's triggers break at 6lbs. This sounds like a lot but it is entirely usable for any purpose the gun is suitable for. I shoot Silhouette with mine, and I win.

Having it do the exact same thing everytime is most important.

Randy

[nekshot]

thanks Randy, I took the trigger assembly apart and stoned and polished it and put it back together and it has improved 1000 fold! It has the normal first stage movement then very little creep and a fairly clean break (wee bit on the heavy side ) but I can handle the weight when the break is crisp and clean. I think I can live with it now. Not to be weird but the gun is shooting so good I hated to take it apart for fear I might jinks it!! This is the mannlicher one piece stock enfield I converted from a two piece unit.

[leebuilder]

Hi Nekshot. One piece, very interesting. Randys post is spot on, good info. I polish the parts and 99% of the time thats all that is needed. Some guys change the angle of the cocking piece, but that can turn your cocking piece to scrap if you take to much. Lightening the cocking piece will help to in some cases.
be safe.

[nekshot]

138871doesn't shoot cast worth a darn but makes neat little clusters with jackets so jackets it shoots.

[W.R.Buchanan]

OK, that's the second one that has showed up here with the butt socket removed and one piece stock.

That is a nice looking #4 Mk1.

You're going to have to get a 5 round mag for it. which will improve the looks even more.

Over at http://www.enfield-rifles.com/default.asp we have a guy from South Africa who is making them for #1's and #4's at $50. Temp out of stock but will notify when supply is back. I'll let you know when he's got some. The shorter mag is more in keeping with the theme of a hunting rifle.

Randy

[nekshot]

Ok< please let me know when available because I have only ever seen one 5 shot clip and the gun that it was on was way over priced to justify buying complete gun for clip!

[John 242]

Could you please inform me as to what scope mount that is?

I have used the Williams mounts from Brownells, but I'm not entirely thrilled with them.
The Williams model is a drill and tap type, with proprietary rings. When mounted, it's a pretty solid set up, but the rings are a little skimpy and I'm not fan of how they mount to the base.
Your mount seems to use Weaver style rings. That would be ideal.

Is this a Q.D type that's mounted to the charger guide, or is it a drill and tap set up? Most of the stuff I do is permanent installations.


Any help would be appreciated.

John T.

[Von Gruff]

OK, that's the second one that has showed up here with the butt socket removed and one piece stock.

That is a nice looking #4 Mk1.

You're going to have to get a 5 round mag for it. which will improve the looks even more.

Over at http://www.enfield-rifles.com/default.asp we have a guy from South Africa who is making them for #1's and #4's at $50. Temp out of stock but will notify when supply is back. I'll let you know when he's got some. The shorter mag is more in keeping with the theme of a hunting rifle.

Randy

Randy, what are the 5 shot magazines like it terms of the bottom profile. There were a few getting around that had the bottom plate straight (angled down from front to rear but in a straight line) from front to back and flat from side to side.
Does he do the curved bottom like the Lee Speeds as I would be in for a few of those
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv39/VonGruff/303%20Lee%20Enfield%20sporting%20rifle/Lee%20Speeds/4_zps2f411463.jpg (http://s667.photobucket.com/user/VonGruff/media/303%20Lee%20Enfield%20sporting%20rifle/Lee%20Speeds/4_zps2f411463.jpg.html)

[nekshot]

John 242, that is a weaver mount that is for a lee enfield but is for 3/8th rings as in a 22 mount. I DT the reciever and the hump at rear sight. I also DT the rings to base because I was not sure about the recoil and the 3/8 claw. I also have a jungle carbine I made a mount for that one from regular stock material and DT the receiver but where the rear sight was I fit a piece of metal in and fastened it with the sight screws, then I tapped that piece of metal. This left the rear sight hump original. If you want I can dig it out and take a picture.

Von Gruff, I agree that is a sweet cartridge bottom for gun. I have one of those new replacements that look like somebody with a sheetmetal brake played around on his dinner break and came up with a useable butt ugly magazine!

[John 242]

Thanks for the reply, Nekshot. I appreciate it.
If you happened to have the time and inclination, I'd be thrilled to see pics of your work on that scope mount.
I really like what you've done with that Enfield. Very nice looking rifle.

[Multigunner]

If anyone runs across what looks like a No.5 action with butt socket removed but has the cut out in the bolt track for disassembly like the No.4 MkI* it could be an experimental Canadian Lightened No.4 rifle.
They made a batch of these for field testing. After the tests most were supposed to have been given to various Constabulary as animal control rifles. They almost never show up in collections.
They had a slender 23" barrel, one piece stock, and factory recoil pad.

As for the Enfield triggers. One thing I've run across on occasion is a trigger with the lumps flattened on top. Apparently recoil can make the sear legs bounce or vibrate against the upper lump and flatten it if the steel isn't properly heat treated. This can affect final stage trigger pull.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Randy's advice is extremely good. I can only add that the trigger lifting the cocking-piece need only be very slightly, and the cocking-piece making even an infinitesimally small forward motion as the sear moves is a deathtrap, for any sudden jolt might jar it off.

The cocking-piece moving neither one way nor the other? That is the ideal with many types of trigger, where both components are firmly located relative to one another. I don't think that is good enough in contact with a bolt action cocking-piece, though, since it isn't rigidly enough held to straight-line movement.

This picture shows the single stage trigger of the Long Lee-Enfield, and also its half-cock notch in the cocking-piece. Personally I prefer that to the safety, which is easy to disengage by accidental contact. It would be better if it was disengaged by upward motion, or rotating a knurled round knob.


139008

It wouldn't be too hard to make a five-shot magazine, or one with a flat bottom which might reduce it to four. But the ten-shot magazine is a useful palm-rest for a standing shot.

Some late No4 actions had a trigger located in an extension of the receiver, which was said to give greater consistency of pull. The advantage is normally at best slight, though. The rear of the trigger-guard is mounted on metal anyway. But it might be of some help for a conversion like Nekshot's.

[nekshot]

here is a close up of the 1 pc stock gun. I kept the rings off set to the screws into reciever so all you need to do is take scope out of rings and you can easily get to base screws. I never knew a 1 pcstock was a possibility, simply after buying the jungle carbine out of a 5 gal bucket from Bass Pro(they laughed at me for rescuing it) I thought how easy it would be to make one into a 1 pc stock. I found a santa fa sporter and I was on my way. The first stock broke when the gun fell 6 feet off the wall mount. This stock is the second and hopefully the last. The scope mount on the jungle carbine is mounted into a piece of metal fit where the rear sight mounted and I fashioned a piece of metal at the front hump which clamps together. The mount is very sturdy and the gun stayed original. I said in previous comment I DT this reciever but I forgot till I got the gun out.(need to get these toys out more often). The 1 pc gun is garbage on cast, but will put 5 rounds of the hornady sst 123 7.62x39 bullet with 45 grains varget into 1 inch moa any time you choose! SORRY, cast boolit says my pic's are wrong size?? I have to wait for kids to show me how to do this!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

They have a fairly stringent limit on the size of .bmp files, and very likely some others. But the website automatically resizes .jpg and .jpeg files. Most graphics programs, like the ancient Micrografx Picture Publisher 10 I still use, will let you open a .bmp file and save an extra .jpeg or .jpg version.

Rifles are contrary beasts. I got just as good groups, with my .300 H&H Magnum, with 125gr. Hornady spire points as with the 190r. MatchKings I aways intended. Captain Shore, who ran a sniping school and wrote "With British Snipers to the Reich", received a donation of very old MkII ammunition with 215gr. round nosed bullets. He found that the latest No4 rifles were still throated to suit, and it gave excellent accuracy.

Here are two bullets I used in my pre-war 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer, in which many believe the use of pointed or lighter bullets courts drastic loss of accuracy. One is a 160gr. Hornady round nose, and the other is a commercial clone of the 140gr. Swedish Mauser spitzer. A caliper set to land diameter comes to exactly the same point on their surface.

139036

[W.R.Buchanan]

Neck and Von Gruff: the magazines the guy in SA makes are exactly like the Santa Fe 5 round mags that a lot of Parker Hale Sporters had.

They are not cut down 10 rounders like the one in VG's photo above. They have a bottom that looks exactly like a 10 round mag. in fact the mag looks just like a shorter 10round mag.

Here's pics of my Santa Fe Mag.

Randy

[Von Gruff]

Thanks Randy. I think I will hold out for the "correct" Lee Speed style for my rifle.

[John 242]

No problem Nekshot. I appreciate the effort. Thanks.