Every few years a new crop of Enfield owners arise that have questions about the head spacing issues with their rifles. I have collected a small group of fired casing that were shot in rifles with know problems. There is a casing with a good chamber and excessive head space, one with a chamber drilled off center, and one with excessive head spacing and a too long chamber. I also threw in a fired casing in a rifle who's head spacing has been adjusted to a "normal" length and has been reloaded six times.
.303 Military brass has a very thick web in the casing which when fired in an Enfield rifle with excessive head spacing may not show any signs of case stretching. When the shooter tries a commercial loaded round and sees a bright band or an " hour glass" shape just in front of the rim, they assume that the brass is somehow faulty. Not true. It is your rifle. Any time you see a stretch mark or the case fails and parts in two just in front of the rim, its caused by excessive play. 8 of of 10 ten times it is excessive head spacing. The other causes are a too long chamber where the case is " blown out" to fill the shoulder area, or the chamber is out of round, drilled off center. Beleave it or not, this is not uncommon with these rifles. You gather up 10 Enfields and you will see fired cases from a couple of these rifles that show and off center / out of round chamber.
Why? You need to understand that these rifles were made in the time leading up to, or during a time of war. The British Army needed many,many rifles and needed then quickly added to the armories. Quality suffered as a result. The rifles were well used and showed up in all sorts of places after the wars. How and what was done to them is any ones guess.
Years ago I had a chance to spend some time in England. I met a fellow who was a British Army Armorer. He and I talked over beers about rifles and all sorts of WWI and WWII weapons in general. I brought up the topic of head spacing in the Enfield rifles. He told me that they were taught to " To provide enough head spacing as to allow the soldier to carry a dry pair of socks" in these rifles. The reason being war time production of ammunition and the very different climates these rifles were to be used in. I asked him how they adjusted the head spacing, did they use the numbered bolt heads for the No4 rifles, or the varying length No1 type bolt heads to adjust the head spacing?. If they could get them,yes. But the number they needed was not always available out in the field. 95% of the time the bolt body was shortened or replaced from another rifle being used for parts.
So what do you do? Contact Springfield Sporters or any of our sponsor's that have bolt bodies and find a longer or longest one you can and then swap out bolt heads. If you have a casing that looks like any in the photo's that I have posted, a number 3 bolt head will not fix your problem. Every rifle that showed a head spacing problem shown here was repaired using a longer bolt body and a bolt head no longer than a number 2.
The problem of case head failure is so common with these rifles that many members will use a neck sizing die only to reload brass that is slightly stretched. This may work for small errors in head spacing or chamber length. Can you use a head spacing gage? To a point yes. But the gage is not the absolute end to all means. How is the shoulder in your chamber? Is the chamber round? drilled off center? The head spacing gage may say you have a bad rifle when you don't, or a good chamber that is so out of round you suffer from case bulges, but the head space is good!
It is not my intention to scare off any Enfield collector. The goal of this post is to make you aware of what is really going on with your rifle.
Correcting a head space error is easy to fix. While there are all sorts of ways to measure the error, most members will have masking tape on hand. Place a piece of masking tape on the back of the cases rim. Do not use a fired casing. Use a new unprimed case, or a loaded round that you have pulled the bullet and powder may be used. Don't forget that primer is still very powerful and can cause an injury to you or others. Keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. The casing must be loaded from the magazine or placed behind the extractor for this to work. Don't let the tape gather up under/behind the extractor. Close the bolt slowly. If the front sight is at 12 O'clock as you hold it, when you close the bolt to about 2:30-3:30 you should feel a slight resistance as the bolt takes up the head spacing. If you don't,add another layer of tape. Try again. Once you have felt the resistance, stop and measure the amount of tape needed to take up the slack. Measure the thickness of the tapes and minus about .001 or .002. A too tight of head space my bind the bolt when fired. A good dial or digital caliper is best to use for this measurement. If your lucky and the measurement is very slight, swapping the bolt head my be the way to go. My guess is that it will be more than you think it was. I have a rifle that had a free head space of .037". I'm glad I did not fire this rifle before I knew there was a problem.
I hope this information has helped. It is not meant to be a course on Enfield Gunsmithing. The odds of you having an Enfield rifle with excessive head spacing, out of round chamber, or a too long chamber are against you.
Please always wear shooting glasses when firring any surplus rifle.
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