Original 1918 Lee Enfield SMLE

[jimmiroquai]

I was able to acquire the original woodwork and metal bits from an original 1918 SMLE. I thought i was getting reproduction parts but the invoice said c1918....Anyway, since it's here, and i won't find any other SMLE stocks for the price i got this one, i hope nobody mids if i convert it to airsoft....




This is an orginal 1918 Lee enfield SMLE No.1 MkIII wood foreend, barrel bands, nosecap. I'm still waiting for the buttstock to arrive. Although The No4 rifle was more popular ad numerous, the MK.III was used throughout WW2.

It's surprisingly slim and small, Thinner than a K98 stock. It'l be much more challenging to put a Bar10 into it. But its been done before so i just need to figure out which bits to cut and shave.

Will update as i go...

[jnmodeller]

congrats jim, that's i all ways dreamed of having the original look but still a functional airsoft.

[labrador]

Ah yes, the british...ugly weapons but for some reason they've got so much classic appeal. churchill tank, vickers light tank, boulton paul defiant, fairey gannet...i think only the spitfire, the mosquito and the lanc overcame the curse.

[jimmiroquai]

Yeah, the SMLE MkIII has got to be oe of the weirdest looking bolt action rifles ever...that's why i love it!

[jimmiroquai]

Got some work done...

Carved out the stock with a set of chisels...my hands and arms hurt from the effort.



I decided to try and keep part of the bar10 outer barrel mainly for cylinder-hop alignment issues. This is difficult because of the large diameter of the outer barrel. I tried to think of several ways to cut it but this is finally what i settled on:

The triangular cut out minimizes the amount of wood i have to cut away from the thin portion of the stock while maintaining the ability to secure the hop to the outer barrel.





Still waiting for the butt stock.
Still have to hollow out the magwell.
Still have to fabricate the external looks on top of the exposed outer barrel to incorporate the rear sight, sightguard, and rear hand guard.

[labrador]

looks good jim.

[frank]

Wow!

[jimmiroquai]

More updates on this project:

Started working on the aesthetics. I used the original Rear handguard. It was chiseled sandpapered to fit on top of the Bar10 outerbarrel and receiver. I superglued it to the outerbarrel and filled the gaps with epoxy putty. I also have the original rear sight guard but since i was going to cut it and just glue it to the outerbarrel, i tought metal might be too heavy and be prone to breakage. I used sintraboard for the rear sight guard instead.




Oh and my buttstock arrived today. I just need to decide weather to join it to the forestock directly with woodscrews ot to fabricate a joining collar out of metal. I have to consider that i will be putting an edgi upgrade in this rifle so the stock join will have to be strong...any wood experts out there that can comment?



Still waiting for the RS trigger guard
Still have to hollow out the magwell
Have to join the butt to the forestock

[jnmodeller]

Jim..........i can only say.......Wunderbar!

[jimmiroquai]

Thanks!

Managed to get some work done while waiting for Pres.Noynoy's great speech...

Hollowed out the magwell. I must say, this weapons grade wood is much tougher than the airsoft Dboys woodstock worked on before. I had to use a big power drill because my dremel couldn't handle the workload. Another advantage of using this RS stock is that, even if it gets real thin in some areas, i'm confident the wood will hold up (hopefully). I also tried to incorporate the magcatch small parts into the wooded stock but i wasn't very precise in my tooling so i ended up cutting the whole assembly off the Bar10 stock and using it.





So far, everything lines up and it shoots very straight!


All that's left to do is to figure out a way to attach the buttstock securely, make a faux SMLE magazine, secure the bar10 receiver with new screws, and work on the aesthetics a little bit more. But right now it's already a working airsoft gun.

I also need to figure out how to adjust the hop without disassembling the rifle. My idea is to put a grubscrew on top of the hop lever, through the outerbarrel. I think this mod's been done before. I just need to find the person that did it...can anyone help?

Still waiting for the RS trigger guard.

[jimmiroquai]

More updates:

I decided to modify the hop on this project. I drilled a hole in my bar10 outerbarrel to expose the hop arm. Then i drilled a corresponding hole on the rear sight i was going to attach to the outerbarrel. I threaded it and placed a screw so i can adjust the hop vertically. I did this because there is very little space in the stock of the custom gun i'm building and i wanted to get rid of the sliding arms. Also, without this mod, i would have to completely disassemble the gun just to be able to adjust the hop. This way, i can adjust the hop on the fly. As a consequence, the rear sight is non-adjustable but this isn't really an issue because i plan to use a scope anyway.

Here you can see the hole i drilled into the outer barrel: Hop off


Adjusting the screw on top will push the hop arm down slowly: Hop on


Here is the cosmetic rear sight with vertical hop adjusting screw:


Also worked on the cosmetics of the receiver and rear sight.

[DAN SAN]

yer pet dog loves the gun... or is she chewing it for a good weathering???.. hehehe

[jimmiroquai]

Hahaha. Our dog just loves the camera.

[jimmiroquai]

I've finally finished it!

Some WIP pics first:

Sculpted the stock join collar directly unto the butt stock with wax.


I then had it cast in brass. After some machining...here's the new receiver:

It's secured in the stock via a screw connecting it to the brass collar and another passing through in front of the magwell assembly.

The brass collar was then secured to the forestock by a combination of woodscrews and a generous amount of epoxy. The butt stock was also secured this way. Seams ad gaps were filled with epoxy steel.

Here it is, my Lee-Enfield SMLE No1 MkIII with original wood and metal parts, JG Bar10 internals...

[mikevictor]

Jolly good! ;D