Want to play with a P-14/17. Do I have it magna fluxed first, then anneal as needed and play, then send in for the heat treat?

Thanks dudes,

lawndart

LD
To my knowlege you'll be amomng the few that will have dealt with the heat treat on the eddystone.

I turned my (Winchester made) enfield into a .375 H&H with no heat treating and it worked very well. I turned several eddystones into .270s and they too worked well with out heat treating.

Eddystones are extremely hard and as a matter of fact many have to spot anneal or use carbide tools to start the spots for drilling and tapping of the scope mount holes.

You're certainly welcome to re harden them and if you do, may I suggest carb .035 deep and a 38 Rc draw after hardening.

From what I understand the cracking of receivers is related to removing the barrel and if you choose to reharden the receiver then I'd magnaflux after heat treating.

JC,
what you do-ing?
If you like, have it mag fluxed and see if it's cracked.. if it is, cut it in half with a torch. If not, once you turn the ears off the rear, you'll be in fairly soft steel you can shape. Like vapo said, spot anneal, carbide.. or diamond/dental dremel burrs to make screw holes.

you don't need to soften then harden these.. they are more than hard enough to avoid lug setback (reasonable reloading), which is why you HT a mauser.

jeffe

Well,

I be wishing to pull the barrel and turn it into a 404 Jeff/470 Mbogo/9.3x70M.

I guess what I should be asking is how do I keep the bastard from cracking.

Don't worry, I won't use a Hannibal stock on it.

LD

Cut a relief cut in the barrel and it'll come off by hand. No chance of cracking it that way.
-Don

Okay..

so, on an enFIEND .. getting the barrel off.

chuck the BARREL in your lathe, or ask a local owner to do this... get as close to the action as possbile.

conversely, you can chuck the barrel just about anywhere, and put a steadyrest on the shank.

Take either a left hand cutting tool or a parting tool, and cut right NEXT to the receiver, and make a fairly decent cut... say .05 deep (that's .1 total)

then run this right to the receiver, if its running very true, you can LIGHTLY touch there, but do NOT try to square the action in this cut

try to remove with "normal" pressure on action wrench

cut the shoulder off a 2 liter coke bottle

put the action/barrel in the bottle, tang IN of course

fill to over the top of the cut with brake fluid

let it sit a week...

this SHOULD come right out


if not, don't torque on it hard...

with a friend, one of you put steady pressure on the barrel wrench.... good, hard, but NOT trying to break it loose... and have a 3# engineer's hammer ready...

have your friend QUICKLY heat the action... just get it hot to the touch.. mebbe enough for spit to sizzle but not flash.. i mean it, do NOT get this thing hot.

bear down good on the action wrench just before you stop heating... it should let out a groan an pop...

if not, remember the 3 pounder? thump it ONCE with follow through... if it doesn't come off, cut a TAD deeper and closer, and try again in 2 days

jeffe

Don,
it's an eddy.. it COULD be over torqued in, and then a little rusted


JC,
this will NOT work on milsurp mausers.. they aren't torqued on the shoulder

IMO no point in fooling with an Eddystone. Get a Winchester or Remington to start with.

I have read that the barrels were screwed into "hot" recievers. They were trying to prevent the left hand rifling from unscrewing the barrel (??).
Most of the time the cut will work. But who knows
it been screwed in tight for 90 years. The older gunsmithing books have a lot of P17 info. They used to cost $7.50.
Good Luck!

Thanks guys,

This should be fun. For $375.00, mostly in trade, I'm willing to take a chance on an Eddystone, especially since the ears are already off, and the rings already on.



LD

I've only done 3 ERA drill rifles, but they all came off buy hand after cutting a groove leaving a paper thin scrap next to the receiver.
-Don

God has smiled on me.
This rifle has already had the barrel out and back in for recontouring in the past.
Let's hear it for cut-rifled barrels, eh?
Heck, it is probably rust blued.
Break out the cross bolts Vern, we're gonna make some recoil.

LD