The orange muzzle paint on mine was super paint! I had to scrape it off and emery off the last bits. It made a mess of the muzzle cap, so I painted it. That was a mistake. It looked terrible. I removed the fresh paint with acetone and then used Abbey Blue Gel to refinish the muzzle cap. It now looks lovely. A couple of extra coats of Tung oil on the woodwork and it now really looks the part.
OK got mine working fine and consistant.
To do this I did the following. Before even firing I removed the bolt seal and cleaned off all old oil with a wipe of meths. I then stuck this into the bolt using silicon sealant.
The mag halves were split and gasket maker applied between the two sealing rings. Initially fps was at 280fps with 0.2g BB's.
All valves were removed and cleaned and washed with silicon oil.
Fitted a custom length Python tightbore of 610mm with mad bull hop up bucking.
I stripped the bolt down, and debured the striker (this is a softish metal piece and may need replacing later on) The striker spring was spaced by 1.5mm using a washer and adjusted slightly tighter. This did make the trigger pull slightly harder and resulted in a fairly consistant fps of between 370-380 with 0.3g BB's. So it comes down to adjusting the spring via its mounting screw. To disassemble the bolt 2 upholstery nails are needed to rotate the mechanism out from beneath the bolt handle area.
Whislt busy I made some stripper clips
and an airsoft cleaning pull through
Still in her red wood (I did find a pic of a reddish original is searching plenty of pics, maybe the light???)
A very thorough review and service guide from one of our local buyers:
Question: Do you think that adjusting the spring within the bolt would be an effective way of reducing the power?
I need to get mine to sub 360 using 0.2s.
Here's a pic
Cant you just change the Gas?
I think Tim who owns a Tanaka K98 used Butane to get below 350 FPS. (forum name prideofengland)
Might be worth messaging him to confirm.
Stu
In the past I would have said yes and used 134a. But now that using that is prohibited I am not up to speed with which gasses can be used and in particular, gasses weaker than propane/green.
Its definitly saves all the hassle of trying to tinker with a rifle and adjusting valves and springs.
Yes. I'll look into it and see what I can get hold of.
In the past I would have said yes and used 134a. But now that using that is prohibited I am not up to speed with which gasses can be used and in particular, gasses weaker than propane/green.
Isn't 144a supposed to be the same power as 134?
Just ordered one of these, so thanks in advance for all the useful guides everyone before me has made.
Still in her red wood (I did find a pic of a reddish original is searching plenty of pics, maybe the light???)
It occurs to me that SMLE's were produced all over the commonwealth. Australian SMLE's can tend to be reddish in colour as Lithgow used Queensland Maple for the stocks. The redness of pictures of the Iron airsoft/matrix woodwork would be at an extreme of the colour range for this wood.
They also used coachwood which gives a more caramel colour.
Okay so I have my SMLE and it works great but as predicted the magazine has now started leaking. The one thing not mentioned in any of the guides to fixing this is, how do you take the pins out and put them back in without damaging them?
nvm, fixed the leak now 
Just recieved one of these:
http://www.opticswarehouse.co.uk/prodde ... cope_Mount
I spent ages wondering if it would be possible to add a scope. The cost of most scope mounts is prohibitive, especially when you then tend to have to get them shipped from the US or Australia. This one bolts to the side of the reciever where the groove is on the left hand side. theres then a grub screw that presses against the bridge to ensure that it doesn't work loose and a small clamp that hooks onto the front edge of the bridge. The only problem is that the thread on the screw that comes with the mount is different to the thread on the screw in the reciever so I will have to source a replacement.
Mine has been used for "sniping", but using the normal open sights and is plenty accurate. So I've never bothered with a scope.
Anyway it was only the Australian Lithgow HT version that was used as sniper and that was mainly in the Far East and postwar. I doubt any were used in Europe.
I read somewhere that when the British were shown an Australian scoped SMLE, they refused to even consider it a sniper rifle. As I have an Australian Impression however...
Hopefully the next production run irons out the kinks.
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Mine has worked sweet ever since I figured out how to get the mags to work well. Even has been used for opfor in modern airsoft games.
With a scope:
It would have been better if I could have had an offset scope, unfortunately that would mean getting a rather expensive original and paying a gunsmith to fix it on. This mount requires one screw to add or remove it. As you can see, I have painted some details on the scope and some weathering in Brass enamel in order to make the scope seem less out of place.
The bright red of the stock of my Iron airsoft SMLE finally got to me.
I pulled apart and ran an electric finishing sander over the parts. I gave it 5 coats of Walnut stain, 1 coat of raw linseed oil and there after about 12 coats of boiled linseed oil and finishing with steel wool, between each coat.
I didn't want one of the very dark finishes and I wanted a beech wood colour. The wood came out fairly near and should darken with age and use and reoiling. I see even the yellow speccles one sees in beech wood.
Interestingly I have not used the rifle in about a year, but the magazine was accidently left charged and I see it does not leak and still shoots very straight, though a fair amount of mods went into this to get it right.
