Hunting knives and related projects

[Von Gruff]

The colour is not as light as it look as I was using my old cell phone before I got a decent camera. It is a bit darker than it looks here.







The 29 1/2 in original barrel is being rebored to 375 so it will be chambered for the 375x2 2/1 nitro express.

[Von Gruff]

This is where I started with my own Lee Speed inspired sporting rifle in 303. A 1901 Magazine Lee Enfield.




This is the blank that will get it there

[Von Gruff]

I decided after firing a few shots the other day that the issue sights were just not going to be usable with my eyes so that was the first thing to be sorted out.

First off I needed a backing washer to build up from where the lobbing sight was located
Lots of fileing and trying for fit to get it done.


Five hours in the shed today working out a design and getting it roughed out first in aluminium.



And transferring it to steel.







Next I will need to get the bends done and slot for the elevation adjustment. That will have to be another day as tomorrow will be bread baking so have to stay close to the kitchen for the day.

Next I will need to get the bends done and slot for the elevation adjustment. That will have to be another day as tomorrow will be bread baking so have to stay close to the kitchen for the day.

[Von Gruff]

I spent the day on it again and had to set it up and check it against the open sights and remove it and try again but eventually got it about right so it will work. The front sight is just an inverted V and is just a bit fine for my needs as I like something about a .9 flat topped blade so split a piece of bar and spread it to comforn to the front sight and will file it in the the lowest position of the aperture. The difficulty with the Lee Enfield in this aspect is that the bolt head has to be turned up to remove the bolt from the rifle and that adds quite a bit of height to clear under the aperture arm but I have decided I will leave the bolt in the rifle for most of the time and with a setting marked on it for a 150yd zero will be able to return it to its correct position if the bolt just has to come out.

This is what I ended up with and was able with changing things just a bit ( well quite a lot) with the aperture centre in line with the top of the arm where I had wanted it.

[Von Gruff]

After the same sprt of stock work as in the post on Bill lee Speed I got it to this stage (where I thought it was finished lol)

I decided that after the 18th rubbing of oil into the stock it was starting to look about done and while it is still in the soft stage and will take a week or two to harden up I couldn't resist assembling it this morning and thought to post a couple of pics. I am still waiting for the lever headed screws (they are in the mail and should be in in about a week-ten days) from Scott at http://www.customscrewsandmore.com/Page4.html who has been a real gent to deal with.
Then I will have to get the Lee speed done for Euan and we will get them blued at the same time as the barrel mounted sling eye is fixed in place. Anyway this is it in the horrible light of winter this morning.

[Von Gruff]

Update 28-mar 2015

After shooting the rifle a few times it had become apparent that the barrel was toast so a new #4 barrel was traded for and after installation it certainly looked better and as I had recently done quite a bit on the top of the wrist socket on another two lee Speeds, this one came in for the same treatment.
As it was


After a couple of hours with the files and of course the stock wrist had to be re-shaped as well.



Having gone that far I was going to have to re-finish the stock so I decided to replace the hardwood grip cap with one of Buffalo horn that I had recently made.

[Von Gruff]

The new buff horn cap ready to go



And a bit of dressing back of the stock to fit the new and very slightly smaller and neater grip cap. At the same time I took a little more out of the grip itself which made a real difference to the feelof the rifle in hand.



And with that needing a full sand back I decided that I would re-do the forestock as well as I had a piece of buff horn that I could use for the forend tip in place of the hardwood one I had first put on.

[Von Gruff]

Having taken care of the grip cap it was the turn of the forend tip next and having a piece of buff horn it was away up to the shed

Before



Some saw work



With the faces squared up and some brazing rod dowel drilled in, some devcon epoxy and clamps have it held till tomorrow

[Von Gruff]

A couple of days back I had filed a waist into the trigger guards



After doing the forend tips I decided to radius the edges of the trigger guard anchor points.

[Von Gruff]

So out of the clamp and it was time to do a preliminary shaping on the sanding drum then get out the files and sand paper.

A couple of hours (the horn is hard to file and sand so it takes a while) it looked like it was supposed to be there



Spent the rest of the day with 220,360 and 600 grit W&D paper getting it ready for the finish

[Von Gruff]

I am going to call this one done now, except for bluing of course. After the new barrel, grip cap, and forend tip in buff horn and the strip back and re-finish I took it out for a shot and it was shooting low enough that I removed the dovetailed front sight blade and filed off the top of the ramp and hand cut a new dovetail. I found the blade @ .05 just a bit thin to pick up so split a piece of steel that is .125 thick and after filing the original blade down and thinning it toward the top, tapped the new blade over it. It makes a sight I can seen now and is what I did for a couple of other front sight blades I have. When I worked out the height I needed to file it down to I found it would come too close to the top of the split so filed off the dovetail and cut a new one. Went out for a few more shots and as I have not worked up a load for this barrel yet so just had the 17.3gn of blue dot load that has shot in other 303's and while the"group" was nothing to write home about it was centered over the point of aim at 50 yds so I can now start load work-up.
I have some babbit bullets aged up and ready to go so I can start to find out what this one will do.

[Von Gruff]

Sometime later I traded some stockwork for a very rare genuine 6 shot magazine for the Lee Speed.

[Von Gruff]

Heavily edited to remove parts that has been shown on the last couple of projects although there are some added parts with the cartridge chosen fr the barrel and the magazine.

I had been wanting a big brother for the 303 Lee Speed I did a while back and in a couple of email conversations with forum members the two contenders I was trying to decide on were between a 375 or a 40 cal. The 40 won out and I was generously given a BSA commercial action so with a bolt and stock bolt from my own parts box, had the start to what I wanted to do.



The next thing was to re-contour the rear of the action socket to give it the 'Lee Speed" radiused top rather than the almost square top of the standard action.



I then Spent a little time and made the aperture sight. Nothing fancy (or spendy) but similar to the one I made for the 303 which was a success so this is just more of the same.

[Von Gruff]

The next step was to look at stock blanks and had semi selected 3 from a plain but well grained one to a nicely marked 1/4 sawn one to a flat sawn one with more grain but no colour but after a conversation with Brian (from NZ Walnut Supplies) I bought this blank..




Because I have a few more Lee speeds to do after this one I decided to make a framed pattern so I could lay it on the blank and actually see the grain rather than drawing around the pattern then seeing I needed to shift it a bit. This way I can shift the framed pattern round to the most advantageous position, mark two location spots on it and then mark out the pattern from the pattern board. It meant I did shift it from where I originally thought it would go but it will be better for the finished stock.



One of the chaps I had been talking to about the cartridge choice had wanted another 375-303 (he had had one years ago) so he sent down an action and we organised another blank so I could do the two of them in tandem. Having the guides set up for drilling the stock bolt hole I did mine in the mornig then got the second one done in the afternoon so they were both at the same stage.

[Von Gruff]

Then the usual inletting was done to bring them to this although neither had barrels at this stage




After seeing how I reshaped my own wrist Euan wanted his done as well