Lee Enfield No4 Mk1* Bedding Problems

I’ve been doing a ton of reading, I have the Canadian D of D manual for my rifle. I read Peter Laidler’s? ( on milsurps) long writeup on bedding. However, it’s not helping me. Here’s the problems I’ve observed. 

1. Fore stock seems to show no wear in the draws. I can see good contact at the front trigger screw. There’s no contact at the barrel bearing. No contact at the muzzle bearing. Handguards are touching the barrel on top of the barrel. The trigger guard is under slight pressure. When the front trigger guard screw is removed, slight pressure pops the front away from the forestock. With a straight edge, the barrel bearing area is straight, muzzle to receiver area, but the stock sides are low by the middle band. There’s no play in the stock area when assembled, but when removing the stock, its not at all hard to pull the stock away. 

Forestock pivots at front trigger screw, if thumb pressure is held at that screw area. The manuals seem to say that the muzzle bearing is raised. However, it appears that it’s the same level all along. The stock sides and insides do not look to have been tampered with. Looks original.  

2. What I’ve tried. I tried temporary shims at the base of the draws. This brings the barrel down some, still no barrel contact at muzzle, no contact at rear barrel bearing. But this cant be the answer as the rear trigger guard screw is under incredible pressure because of the increased spacing created by the shims. 

If indeed your barrel has no contact at all with the forend, you will be able to slide a thick paper shim under the barrel from muzzle to chamber reinforce with no resistance and with the front trigger guard (main) screw fully tight.  I would not expect the rifle to shoot well in that configuration. 

 If the forend is making good contact with the receiver bedding areas and the chamber reinforce area, you can correct this problem by adding bedding compound to the muzzle bearing area at the forward end of the forend. You can experiment with using card stock as shims first.  It may be that a previous owner rasped that area out thinking a free floating barrel will shoot better. 

Trigger pull is changed by shimming at the action, which effects the engagement of trigger "bumps". (Lower is first pressure, upper is second) against the upper face of the "Y" shaped Sear.

If you look at the diagrams I'm attaching you will see how bedding depth at the action effects trigger pull.

This is why you start at the rear. If you decrease the separation vertically between the bottom metal & the actual action in TINY increments, while keeping them parallel,  it will come back. Then you "go round the loop one" more time till everything is dead on.

You can actually assemble the top & bottom metal & spacer without the wood & see how the slightest change changes the geometry. I wouldn't  fire it that way though.