Thread: .303 Tank crew carbine

Ive been faffing around with a bunch of Lee Enfields of late, returning the best of them to full wood and parting out others etc. Its been a while since I did any work on these old girls and I wanted one in my safe that I could drag out for fun at the range from time to time.

I had a perfect donor for just that the metalwork is in great condition for a 1906 SMLE No1 Mk3 and it has a nice walnut stock but it was sporterized after ww2 like most others were.
The bore is one of the best sharpest, most shiny and least worn Ive seen in one of these with the exception of a bad pitting ring about 6" from the muzzle.

Ive always been a fan of carbines and short rifles so decided on a full wood carbine version that have become known as tankers or tank crew carbines.
While there were never any Enfields made like this from factory, there are many documented rifles like it cut down in the field for armoured vehicle crews, trench warfare and tunnel rats for whom the full length rifles were just to cumbersome.

For anyone interested in this bit of history you can read about it here:

https://www.milsurps.com/content.php...-Mk-III*-Rifle

I wanted to make it short but also refit the barrel band and end cap to make it look as much like the full length version as possible without messing up the over all scale of the fore wood. I decided a barrel length of 16.25" was the look I was after and would still keep enough velocity to shoot on the 300yrd range.

So after stripping the rifle and removing the barrel, I lopped off the end and spun it up in the lathe to recut the taper for the foresight.
I also recut the crown to look like the original one.






After realigning the fore sight and pinning it in place I touched up the blueing.
I also decided to replace the fixed rear sight with one of the adjustable windage sights for easier fine tuning.





On to the wood.
I cut a new barrel band groove closer to the rear sight where the sporterized wood was thinned to about the right size as what it would have been if it was full length.



I scratched through my walnut collection to find a plank that best matched the colour of the stock and then spent a considerable amount of time matching the cut direction and grain.
After cutting the front off the front of the new barrel band slot I glued on the new donor walnut extension to carefully hide the join under the steel barrel band.





After milling out the barrel channel the next mission was to cut out the nose cap inlet. Lots of measuring and chiseling later I got it fitting nice and snug.











Last but not least I had to make a new top wood to tie it all in. Ive seen people cut down original top woods to do this but other than a waste of good vintage parts I personally dont think it looks right.
Instead I cut another piece of walnut and matched the grain direction again.
The intention was to make a top wood with all the same shapes and angles of a full length top wood but in a miniature version.









I gave all the rest of the stock a careful tidy up and started the week long process of building up the linseed oil luster of the day.





I will throw together some loads for it and see how it shoots soon. I have some 150gr 174gr and 180gr to test.