Lee Enfield no4 build with S+S budget parts

put the breech detail on a back burner while i think, so another thing i wanted to try was to make removing the bolt easier, the bolt stopper is usually only removable if the breech is removed from the stock but it sits just above the magazine so i thought i'd make an extended stopper and attach it to the magazine so that by pulling out the mag you also removed the stopper, it worked well .also shortened the mag to fit at the same time.

As you said it sits above the real magazine could you have solved the whole forward mag problem of normal Enfield springers?

i cant think of a practical and reliable way to move the mag for the bb's back to the position of the real one, plus they were never loaded that way in the war ,the mag was a fit once and forget except for cleaning and not used for re loading, a better idea would be thinking of a way to top load it with bb's.
anyway finished up the day by trimming down the outer barrel to the point where it is only there to support the hop unit and inner barrel ,let that into the fore stock, always takes ages to get a really good fit but worth the time as its key to get everything aligned .

Nice job so far

top woodwork fitted over hop ,had a job getting the barrel band fitted ,quite a bit had to be chiseled out but its a nice fit now.


next i need to make up the stock mounting piece or the outer barrel or cut the mag well....

Ah if only I had your skills. Looking good.

a little more done today, started on the stock mount. used my usual method of taking steel tube section ,cut ,welded, re formed ,welded to the trigger guard and a cylinder of threaded steel welded in to take the stock bolt and drilled and tapped from the top to bolt on the rear of the breech .the result is a strong and wobble free joint, in the real rifle the joint is part of the breech and the trigger guard screwed on to make it secure, i just reversed the process , the reason being the breech is alloy not steel and i don't have the proper gear to weld alloy's (especially Chinese pot metal).its all un-finished as yet but structurally its done.oh forgive the photo quality i had to use my phone as the camera has gone for a walk.

right ,now i have the stock mounted i can go a little further with the casting for the breech and i have a question to ask Chris ,i have laid the casting on top of the breech and my feeling is that the casting needs to be quite extensively cut down , i must point out that on this gun we are getting the breech casting in the right place, in the S+S design it sits forward of the correct position to match the bolt handle of the vsr, i will be moving it to the correct position and extending the bolt backwards to the correct position as well, if you have the kit and you don't want the positioning corrected then none of this is needed to be done.
the hatched area's are where i plan to cut the casting, this will remove the front part almost completely ,leaving only an arm on the left side but cut all the way back on the right to the stripper clip receiver.

i cut the casting down and i think it really is usable now , i have to stress that for most people this will not need to be done, i'm not using the casting's as they were intended.


also made up the spacer to move the bolt handle back to the correct position.

after some deliberation it has been decided that the breech casting is not going to achieve the desired effect and that fabrication of a new breech set is the way forward, we are just trying to use it in a way that it was not intended to be used .so.... i started work on the new breech fabrication , there's not a great deal of detail as yet but it will give the desired effect ,be far more robust and easier to mount as well as having a minimum of filler used.it would be nice if it could be blued rather than painted and i'm not ruling it out but its likely to need some area's of paint.



sorry about the picture quality but i had to use my phone, our camera unfortunately died so until we get another the phone will have to do.

Looking great Gav..

a little more done today, i'll soon be in a position to start on the safety, to that end and it might seem obvious but i'm assuming that the safety catch is safe in the down or backward position and the firing position is up and forward, please correct me if i'm wrong but i have only ever held a de-ac and never played with the safety .

Yes, safety is in the down back position.. Forward and up position to fire...

looking good chap
dont blame you mate for changing over, was allways going to be a miss match

Right from the outset Chris wanted a working safety on the correct side of the breech, he also included a genuine no 4 trigger to use if at all possible.so today's mission was to make up a steel vsr trigger that could be welded to the genuine one and to make the safety work.now at the moment the trigger is in the shape of a no 4 trigger and once i'm happy i'll lop of the trigger and weld on the no 4 one .now the safety is a copy of the other side that i made in sheet steel and fitted a return spring onto ,this is acted on by a cam fitted to the safety switch axle end.it all works well, i took the photo's without the woodwork fitted so it could be seen.




of course i had to mill out the trigger assembly a little to allow the safety be fitted , once again i have to apologize for the photo quality.

Amazing work there, Gav.

Gav could you put a dadio stamp on it some where not that visible.... Just thinking that as a piece of art, it might be worth a fortune in a few years.. Move over Banksy!!!

i have been considering a brand name ,was thinking of "Bespoke Victory" or stamping a serial No with BV as a prefix and then a build number but i never seem to get round to it.

got a we bit more done, a bit of filling , painting and experimental bluing .some parts of the breach have to be modeled in epoxy putty and painted so i was just comparing the blue'd steel parts with the painted parts , i don't think it's too bad ,better than all paint.