BSA Mk1* Sporting rifle (build)

Many of us around here do also appreciate a well-done sporter. I've been keeping an eye on this too, just not saying a lot.

A little progress with through bolt drilled and the butt fitted into the socket, a forend tip and grip cap in jarah made and glued on with 1/8" brass dowels. I have started the inletting for the barrelled action and being as I have not done one of these before makes it a slow process. Chisels and a very small mallet, a smoker and much repeat. May be a day or two to get it fitted into wood. (It makes Mausers and the couple of Martini's seem quite simple in comparison with the angled wrist of the Enfield making a fit for the king screw lug and the trailing curve of the magazine cutoff needing very careful wortk) I had intended to dry fit the forend tip and the grip cap with the dowels only glued into one side and then shape up to about 95%, remove and stain with raven oil then glue together and finish so that the black raven oil would make it look like ebony but I have seen them done in buffalo horn, ebony and rosewood so the jarah will personalise it for me as the jarah was given to me by a friend.

Next day
Another 5 hours on it today and while time is not a factor, getting it right is so it will take as long as it takes.

This is my inletting tools so nothing anyone shouldn't have in their shed. Simple handwork



Smoking the barrelled action


You can see where the soot has left its mark on the wood. Scrape this away and smoke again. At the start of the job the chisels get more work as cutting agents than the do after it starts to gets some shape to it. I have a couple of barrel off cuts that I have ground square so the sharp edge will scrape the channel and later will wrap them in sandpaper and take smaller amounts of wood off at a time

Next day

I am a bit more relaxed this afternoon as another 4 hours has the barrelled action fully inletted. Still have to relieve the mag cutoff area, fit the trigger guard, and open up the mag well but these are realitively similar to other fitting jobs as to be familiar but that angled wrist that requires the full forward positioning before the downward fitting is done was a new bone to chew. The steel butt plate turned up from Track of the Wolf this morning and I am going to fit that with a 3/16 cast off before shaping up starts.

Next day saw the trigger guard inletted and the mag well opened up so the magazine sat into its proper place.

Sire, you are a talented individual.
Please - carry on
Hoadie

A square 10 wrote: - do pass the old lumber on to someone else here ,

Have got it for sale here in NZ. Shipping off shore is a killer

After the trigger guard and the mag well was attended to the first thing was to reinforce the rear of the forestock which is often done with a brass pin through the stock but I wanted the strength without the visible rod end so made a series of holes with a undersize drill bit, cleaned it out and with sawdust to stain the epoxy a bit tapped the threaded stem into the cut out so that the threads actually bit into the wood.




Put that away into a warm place to mature for a day or two (our winter so the shed is to cold for glues/epoxies)

Then it was patience with rasps then files to bring some shape to it





And the "tools"