Thread: A wee project for myself

Originally Posted by gundoc

I have made special tooling to bore out the receiver by hand. You can't do it in a lathe because of the skinny tool needed and the interrupted cut. I anneal the bolt body and hacksaw to the appropriate length, square it off and tap it out. The SMLE Mk III's I use for the De Lisles have an Enfield bastard thread so I had to make the taps for that. The No4 has UNF threads so 7/16" UNF is correct for the bolt head. Once the bolt is threaded then I file fit it until the bolt head registers correctly. Obviously the barrel cannot be finished until the bolt has been done correctly.

Thanks for that, looks like I was on the right track in planning the next project (I do still have to finish this one though). I was thinking of making something up a bit like a tap washer seat cutting tool to do the receiver. And I may be able to get away with finding a No4 bolt head instead of a whole bolt which may be a bit easier.