Bad News, No. 4, Mk I

[stratocaster]

Headspace

Some really great info on headspace in this thread.

Moderators: Please consider putting this info into a sticky. It would save us newcomers a lot of angst about this subject that is not well understood for Enfields.

[Tom in GA]

Fiield space is .074 inches as stated above. Emergency headspace was allowed to go to .080 inches. I had a rifle with a headspace I gauged at about .078 inches. I shot a couple of UK mfg rounds in it. No problem except noted some black weepage marks on the case. I later fixed the bolt with a #3 bolt head from a #1 bolt head.

[Guamsst]

.......... Funny thing, of all the enfields I have and have fired, I never owned a set of headspace gages.

I think of Enfields like the SKS, if you can get a bullet of mostly the correct size and shape and a handfull of gravel in the chamber, it should function fine. I had a friend who religiously headspaced his Enfields and was fairly obsessed with it. He kept worrying about it and rarely keeping an Enfield due to all the headspace issues. I kept on collecting and on the rare chance I got one that was a bad shooter, it was always the barrel, not the headspace, that was the problem.