Making Over a SMLE Sporter, Part 2

At some point, probably in the 1950's or '60's when  surplus SMLE's were widely available and cheap (I can remember in the 60's seeing barrels of them in Warshall's Sporting Goods in downtown Seattle for about $35 apiece), someone purchased this SMLE made by BSA in 1916 and converted it into a sporter.  Although most owners of SMLE's simply cut the service stock down, this person took two unusual steps: first, he discarded the two piece military stock and handguard and fit the barreled action, magazine, and trigger guard into a Fajen two piece sporter stock.  That had the obligatory white spacers at butt and grip together with a Monte Carlo comb.  Second, he removed the bridge for charging the rifle, giving a cleaner top line to the rifle, but leaving a large crescent cutout on the left side of the receiver.




I bought the rifle sight unseen from the auction GunBroker.com in May 2009 for $115 (probably a bit under the '60's price of $35, correcting for inflation).  I thought that it was an excellent candidate for an inexpensive make-over into a British-styled light rifle. Here is an example of what I was thinking of, this one with a flush magazine.

My aging eyesight dictated that I'd have to mount a peep sight instead of the open express sights on the example above. 

I cut off the Monte Carlo comb and used a rasp to reduce the cheek piece, reshaping it into the traditional pancake style with a sharply defined line.  Looking at several illustrations from old catalogs, I noticed that the English typically ended the forward edge of the cheek piece slightly to the rear of an imaginary line extended up from the rear of the grip, so I followed suit. 

I also moved the nose of the comb back and reshaped the grip, slimming it and smoothing out its arc.  Not having any buffalo horn at hand, I capped the grip with ebony.

The pitch of the butt was, well, unusual, so I changed the angle of the butt to the comb line to 90 degrees.  I had on hand an old Winchester red pad, so I sanded off the brand name and mounted it.  It looked quite like a traditional Silvers pad.  I gave the butt some cast off, rasping away at the cheek piece until the sights were on target when I mounted the rifle quickly.

Altering the fore end was comparatively straightforward.  I attached an ebony tip with dowels and epoxy and then shaped it into the shallow curve typical of English sporting rifles.  I slimmed the sides of the fore end considerably.  I cut off the two hollow studs in front of the magazine, originally intended to secure the detachable canvas breech cover, filed the metal smooth, and cold blued it.



I then took the gun to Fred Cornell (570 888-9236) of Sayre, PA, who was able to machine a fill-in for the charging bridge cavity and then soldered it in place and cold blued it.  He removed the rear sight, filing down the screw that secured it to the barrel until it was flush.

Fred soldered on a Williams ramp front sight and drilled, tapped, and mounted a Williams FP aperture sight.  The one negative of this sight is that unlike a Lyman, the sight bar can't be easily withdrawn.  If I were to do this over again, I'd search out an older Lyman with its quick release.

I wanted to mount the old-fashioned rings for a sling, but I couldn't find a source for them.  Instead, I ordered swivels and a sling from NECG, and Fred soldered on the front swivel in a typical English position.  Similarly, I placed the rear swivel closer to the grip than we're accustomed to.

Refinishing the rifle was straightforward.  The Fajen stock was black walnut with a somewhat greenish cast, so to kill the green I added red mahogany aniline dye to extra dark walnut dye in 50-50 proportions.  I then rubbed in two coats of alkanet oil, rubbing each down with 0000 steel wool after it had dried.  Two coats of satin polyurethane varnish followed as a sealer, again rubbing each coat down with steel wool.  I then top coated with Tru-Oil with a slight amount of alkanet oil added to it.

For checkering, I used a simple V pattern of 18 lines per inch on the grip and the fore end. The checkering on the fore end wraps around.

At some point, I'd like to have the magazine shortened so it only holds five rounds.  It would still protrude, but not look quite so military.  As of now, the rifle with sling weighs seven and a half pounds, handles like a dream, and is a delight to hunt with.

 

 





 

Building a Scout--No--Woods Rifle (Part 3 of 3)

 Part 3:  The Woods Rifle Takes Shape

After the XS/Clifton sleeve arrived, Fred Cornell (Custom Shooting Accessories, 3579 Willawena Road, Sayre, PA, 18840; 570 888-9236) removed the action from the barrel and turned down the barrel on his lathe.  He then turned the receiver end to the dimensions required for the XS Systems sleeve.  After shortening the barrel to 20” with a muzzle diameter of .590”, Fred crowned it and sandblasted it.  He then screwed the receiver back on and epoxied the XS sleeve in place, each of us checking that it was at top dead center.  I had thought of darkening the sandblasted stainless barrel to match the anodized aluminum sleeve, but decided that I rather liked the contrast. 

I already owned a Lyman peep sight that would fit the Mauser, so if I liked how this rifle handled and believed I needed back-up iron sights I could mount that Lyman 48 together with a front sight.

Now it was time to start working over the Boyds JRS stock.  Inletting the barrel sleeve was the first step. Here Jerrow’s inletting black was helpful, although as usual more ended up on my fingers than on the wood

The next step was to Acraglas the action and barrel sleeve, being especially careful to use both modeling clay to fill in gaps or screw holes as well as Brownell’s release spray. After the action and sleeve were fitted, I filled in the barrel channel gaps created by turning down the barrel with more Acraglas. 

Boyd’s laminated birch stock was generous in its dimensions but needlessly overweight at 2 ¾ pounds, so, after cutting back the fore end to 8 ½” from the front action screw, I cored the butt.  The top line of the grip resembled a ski jump, so I filed down the rear of the receiver tang, rounding the sides to make a gradual transition into the pistol grip.  Doing this completely eliminated the square-bottomed trough in the wood where the withdrawn bolt encounters the wood and much improved the top line of the grip.  Rasping down the grip, shortening its sweep, and using a plane on the sides of the stock removed more excess wood (laminated birch may be stable, but, as I discovered, it can and does tear out).  I then cut enough off the butt to make the length of pull 13 ½” once I added a Pachmayr recoil pad.  Just for pretty, as the Amish say, I added a grip cap of ebony just over 1/8” thick and rounded its edges.

The final weight of the stock without recoil pad turned out to be just under two pounds; adding the Pachmayr pad and screws took the total to just under two pounds, four ounces.  Even with a heavier recoil pad, the stock was now eight ounces lighter.  Cutting off the cheek piece would lighten the stock even more, but I like cheek pieces.

Finishing the stock was straightforward:  I first dyed the wood with a blend of dark walnut and red mahogany aniline dye.  I then rubbed in two coats of alkanet oil.  After waiting several days for that to dry thoroughly, I applied two coats of McCluskey’s spar varnish thinned with mineral spirits, then a full strength one everywhere bare wood was present, including the cored section of the butt.  Then two coats of TruOil, sanding it in after the second coat.  Three coats would have provided an adequate finish, but I decided to apply more to fill the torn-out divots.  I rubbed down successive coats down with auto rubbing compound until the tear-outs disappeared.

For the scope, I found a good deal on a like-new 2.5X Leupold Scout that weighs only 7.5 oz. The 7x57 cartridge is noted for its relatively light recoil—and with its DWM action probably at least one hundred years old I had no plans for hot-rodding my handloads.  As I was not worried about a magnum’s severe recoil, I ordered matte Millett aluminum rings.  Together, the scope and rings weigh just barely over half a pound.  I checked that reticule was centered on the scope and mounted it so its rear is flush with the front of the receiver. 

Rather belatedly, I decided to go with a Ching sling.  I drilled a ½” hole for the detachable swivel ¾” of an inch in front of the bottom metal and epoxied in the insert flush with the stock.  Or, I should say, almost flush with the stock:  I had made a mistake in using the plane of the barrel channel as a guide on the table of the drill press.  What I should have done was keep the barrel channel down but shim it so that the underline of the stock became level.  Then the insert would have fit flush, rather than being slightly skewed fore and aft.  And, of course, doing this before finishing the stock would have resulted in a neater outcome.  I reinstalled “regular” swivel studs on the fore end and butt with the detachable one in the middle, so I have the option of using either a regular two-swivel sling or a three-swivel Ching sling.

Here are two views of the result of this project so far.  I still have to figure out a way to give some texture to the grip and fore end--all the glue between laminations would dull checkering tools--and, of course, load up some 7x57's and head to the range.  Those results will be in a later post.

 

For what I finally decided to do to give some texture to this stock, see http://gerardcox.blogspot.com/2015/04/stippling-gun-stock.html

 

Sources:

 

Jeff Cooper. To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth. Paulden, AZ: Gunsite Press, 1988.

David M. Fortier, “Scout’s Honor,” Peterson’s RifleShooter, 14 (May/June 2011), 22-28. Review of the Ruger Gunsite Scout.

Chuck Karwan, “Scout It Out,” Shooting Illustrated, VI, No. 1 (Jan. 2007), 23-7, 46-7. On building your own Scout from milsurps.

Brian Pearce, “Ruger Gunsite Scout Rifle: The Cooper Concept Refined,” Rifle, No. 265 (Nov. 2012), 50-55.

Patrick Sweeney, Gunsmithing: Rifles. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1999. I first read about building Scout rifles in his excellent chapter on this topic.

http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/ruger-gunsite-scout-review/

http://jeffcoopersscoutrifles.blogspot.com/

http://www.scoutrifle.org/