Thread: My Shrunken Wood... need advice on No 4 Enfield.

Lee Enfield No 4 shoots 2" vertical and 6"-8" horizontal spread at 100 metres with military ladder diopter sight, HXP BT FMJs. Seems to me a stock problem.... since of course I'm a crack shot (-:

On examination of the patient, the barrel fore-end touches against the left/bottom of the fore-end of the stock whereas it should be free floating there (as it is centre barrel bedded, but it is not even resting fully into the fibreglass centre bedding pillar). Further back, only the left one of the twin recoil lugs is in firm touch with the stock, from checking with some sprinkled flour. The rear transverse steel bar is 1 millimetre ahead off of the wrist band, leading me to conclude there has been some serios stock shrinkage.

The woodwork is varnished, don't know since when.

My tentative plan is to strip the varnish off chemically, then soak the stock in linseed oil + wood resin turps (keeping it smelling like a forest!), partly because the gun will look better that way but I also hope some of the shrinkage / warping is reversible by a good penetrating oil concoction, but is that hoping for too much? How much shrinkage is reversible?
Should I just focus on doing a general fibreglass bedding job and forget about trying to reverse shrinkage/warping? What do others do in this situation?

Is it a 2groove savage or longbranch, they usually dont shoot boattail well at all. Have you tried mil surp mk 7 or other flat based bullets they may be better.
Obviously someone has had a 22 with it as glass bedding definitely was not done in factory. From memory the average lee was good for 4 moa, outstanding ones would do 2 or better and sub par 6, all were accepted as it was a battle rifle after all.
Tertle on this forum is a bit of a wizz on lee enfields so may be worth contacting.
Put up a few photos inc some of the groups and a few may be able to offer suggestions some helpful some humorous.

have a no4mk1* (longbranch) myself and it never tolerated 150gn srounds -sprays em like a mad womens shit.
switch to 180gn and theyll happily trundle down the tube and onto the target(if my minds on the job)
old bloke I spoke to years ago at a deerstalkers shoot reckons it was all to do with the 2 lands/grooves stabilising the heavier round better.
180gnsoftnose are a tad hard on std 1/4"steel plate or hares possums etc inside 100yds so be warned if you want to eat it,think before touching the trigger(not the steel ya dolt)
as said above Tertle is ya man on ye old .303 ,he certainly helped me out.

One of the reasons .303's don't like 150 grain bullets is the throats are shot out from using Cordite the longer 180-215 grain bullets fit the throat better and have a longer bearing surface
to grab the oversizes grooves, first get the barrel slugged to find the groove diameter you could be wasting your time bedding it if the barrel is over .313" which a lot of them are.

Shrunken wood huh....haven't got that problem ....yet


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tergo-strip is the best for removing varnish. then lightly sand it and removed any dents using a wet cloth and a clothes iron. holding the bare wood over steam will cause loose grains to stand on end which you can then sand off.
ive tried linseed in the past but now prefer birchwood casey tru-oil.

Originally Posted by tiroatedson

Shrunken wood huh....haven't got that problem ....yet


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dunno after this long being married the only time i get a hard on is to wash between the folds

Originally Posted by tiroatedson

Shrunken wood huh....haven't got that problem ....yet


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Was going to suggest a little blue pill

Thanks guys. No quick answers then, except of course for the mention of little blue make-wife-happy pills.

I don't think my particular two-groove has probs handling the HXP boat tails, at least going by the absence of keyholing which is described on another forum as the failure mode of two-grooves when fed with HXP.

As far as I understand it re the problem with boat tailed bullets is that they do not obturate as well into worn grooves as do original .303 flat-bottomed spitzers. I believe the S&B .303 FMJ ammo is boat tailed which, if true, might be a lost opportunity to cater for worn Enfields (someone please correct me on this, I could not confirm it either way on the net).

Think I'll just get on with stripping the varnish and getting some oil deep into the wood. But obviously it is not widely known to be a miracle cure for bedding issues. For that we must turn to the little blue pills...

Flat base seems to be the ticket, I was told that on startup the flat base makes the bullet expand as it jumps to the rifling, with boat tails the shape makes them shrink and set up erratically, couple that with varying degrees of throat erosion and a wide selection of bore diameters and you can see why copying the style of the mk VII ammo makes sense.

Add the aluminium / wood cored tip to the wish list. Made the bullet tumble after a few inches penetration so less need for soft point. But before we vilify the Empire it must be said that all spitzers tend to tumble on impact as they're inherently tail-heavy - the Mk VII extremely so of course. The light tip was ostensibly designed for accuracy but it's beyond my understanding exactly how the more rearward centre of gravity makes a Mk VII more accurate, but that it does so seems to be the general consensus.

Flat vs boat tail makes no real difference to ballistic coefficient at normal hunting distances and you are moving centre of gravity forward by having a boat tail. If you were reloading, a flat-bottom 180grain spitzer with plastic tip and hollow point is probably the closest you'd get to a Mk VII, at least as far as rearward centre of gravity goes. If reloading for a very worn .303 maybe paper patching .308 spitzers may be a desperate but workable way to go.

from my understanding the .303s have ALWAYS preferred one weight of projectile over another...... just as all cartridge/twist rates have a sweet spot.
some 303s prefer the 180s as its closer to what they were BUILT/DESIGNED to use where as others handle the 150s or indeed even 123grn (7.62x39mm projectiles) as twist rate is different.
grab a box of factory 180s first up and see what happens....the $40 it cost could be a lot less than the tinkering and may well end up fixing what isnt broken to begin with.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

from my understanding the .303s have ALWAYS preferred one weight of projectile over another...... just as all cartridge/twist rates have a sweet spot.
some 303s prefer the 180s as its closer to what they were BUILT/DESIGNED to use where as others handle the 150s or indeed even 123grn (7.62x39mm projectiles) as twist rate is different.
grab a box of factory 180s first up and see what happens....the $40 it cost could be a lot less than the tinkering and may well end up fixing what isnt broken to begin with.

I think youre pretty well on the money there Mickey ,in the first instance at least.as i said in my old sheila those 180gn loads certainly level anything they hitand dso it with a hell of a whack.
mention of the 7.62x39-my norincoB/A loves the 125gn rounds but is a bitch with the 123g for some reason.the spray is nowhere near as bad as the .303 though.

@kotuku and @Mickey Duck,

Yes, no point being in denial that the No 4 is just no 1200-metre sniper's dream but a more rough tool, a semi-auto bolt action at best.

In the book dealing with WW1 snipers, "Sniping in France" (creepy title - sounds like a holiday memoir!), the author points out that main factor was age of barrel. Over 600 shots the SMLE's accuracy deteriorated. I guess fibreglass bedding would not help that.

Meanwhile, it is fun to tinker and dream of what may never become reality and to play with different kinds of ammo. The groups will get smaller, but there has to be a point of diminishing returns, and it's not at 0.5 MOA.

Pictures tell 1000 words.

"Lee Enfield No 4 shoots 2" vertical and 6"-8" horizontal spread at 100 metres"

A good as issued no4 mk1 should to 2inch MOA.
A good target bedded no4 mk1 should shoot approaching 1moa

"On examination of the patient, the barrel fore-end touches against the left/bottom of the fore-end of the stock whereas it should be free floating there (as it is centre barrel bedded, but it is not even resting fully into the fibreglass centre bedding pillar). Further back, only the left one of the twin recoil lugs is in firm touch with the stock, from checking with some sprinkled flour. The rear transverse steel bar is 1 millimetre ahead off of the wrist band, leading me to conclude there has been some serios stock shrinkage."

So its target bedded. A well done no4 gun should do 1inch MOA, however it sounds more like the stock is twisted as well as dried out? If you need a new forestock $150NZ ish.

The transfer bar should be clear of the wrist but the wood stock should project back further on to the wrist. Indeed for the 1 moa accuracy the wood must be hard against the wrist.

Both lugs have to take weight on the draws, if the right lug is touching then that explains the left touch at the nose. To correct the alignment the easiest way is cut out the old draws and insert copper or brass 3mm thick plates and then pack shims behind them to align the barrel. I can give you a screenshot of the job if need be (pic is at home). At some point I need to build a 3d printable jig to make fixing this easier.

I would indeed carefully remove the varnish and proceed to multi-coat (like 10 heavy coats with fingers) with boiled linseed oil. Do not let any get on the Inner wood surfaces as you need to do a lot of epoxy bedding I suspect.

There is a very good book on kindle "accuarising enfields" not expensive to download if you have a tablet or something.

150gr v 174gr. Lots of comments on these but its simple, some no4 guns actually like 150gr more than the 174gr.

Boat tail v flat base. Depends on the barrel, I have a tight (new) 303 Heavy barrel that I get 1/4moa at most from SMK HPBT v Barnaul 174 FB FMJs. I have a reasonably used barrel that shoots the same accuracy with both. In this instance though the ammo has no significant bearing on the problems you have IMHO.