Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada How to straighten out a bent barrel?

So I have a rather nice sporterized Lee Enfield Mk 3 by Globe Firearms that I strongly suspect has a bent barrel. The reason I suspect that, is the fact I've had to drift the dovetailed front sight far over to the right to get it to print on the target at 100 yds with irons.

I eventually got a mounting base and rings for the rifle and took a nice Leupold scope off another rifle (Rem 700) and mounted it on the Enfield. Normally I would have expected to crank it a couple MOA to zero it at 100 yds but instead had to crank it 8 or 9 MOA in one direction to get it to print. The scope had been zeroed nicely on the Remington but needed radical adjustment (windage) to zero on the Enfield.

My question is - should I remove barrel and action from the stock - put the end of the barrel in the padded vise and manually try to bend the barrel (reef on it) in the proper direction or just leave well enough alone and enjoy it as is?

This Enfield, at best is no better than a 4 MOA performer with Winchester Power Point. I don't want it to get worse but could it be better with a straightened barrel?

With the Covid I've got some time on my hands and thought this might be a good winter project - What say you?

Has anyone ever straightened out a barrel before and if so, how did you do it and how did it turn out? I don't feel like taking this to a gunsmith as it's not that expensive a rifle to spend a lot of money on it.

From what you say, it isn't worth trying to fix. It could be that the site dovetail is misaligned. At any rate, save your money and get another rifle. If you need another 303 (who doesn't?) I would look for another Lee Enfield or get a TC Encore and a 30_303 barrel.

One old test for straightness is to streach a string over the outermost points. compare the string to the barrel?

Steve knows more than I do!

PSE;
Good evening to you sir, I hope the week treated you acceptably other than having a bent barrel and all in your world are well.

Since you've indicated you "might" have a bent barrel, here's how I tell if a barrel is bent.

Take the rifle out of the stock, remove the bolt and then sight down the barrel into a vertical corner. Try to get the light coming up the barrel in a straight line. When you rotate the barreled action, if the light/line moves or appears to bend, then you've got a bent barrel.

When I've straightened barrels, believe it or not the rifle didn't shoot better, but the point of aim changed of course.

I'd suggest however that if you've got a good vice and the rifle isn't a tack driver anyways, you're nothing out trying to straighten it.

Typically I'll put the barrel into a padded vice and manually bend it in the direction it needs to go. Then I'll check in a well lit corner again and continue until it looks like it's straight again.

If memory serves, I've straightened a couple center fire rifle barrels and at least one rimfire too. It was an Anschutz sporter and shot fine after I'd finished, the center fires did as well too as far as I can recall.

One thing that the accuracy folks talk about is that a bent barrel that's been straightened may tend to walk back towards the bend as it heats with shooting. I know when we used to buy Douglas Premium barrels back in the day, we'd pay a premium for a barrel that had not been straightened as it was thought to be more stable.

Years ago I watched a video on the Savage factory and there was a chap who checked each barrel coming off the machine and then straightened them by eye if they weren't up to spec.

Anyways, I hope that was useful for you or someone out there in the ether space tonight.

Good luck whichever way you decide, all the best and do stay warm.

Dwayne

There is probably a you tube vid on it. I worked in a barrelmakers shop briefly, so I'll throw out what I know, keeping in mind I never did one with the action on. Just the barrel...take a well fitting cartridge case, dead nuts center drill a hole around a .100" aperture in the flashole...did I say dead nuts center? Put the barrel in a holding fixture, vee blocks if you have them, insert the case in the chamber and peer thru the drilled hole. In the best case, about 30 feet away you will have a smooth pale flat green surface on the wall, lit in the most uniform light you can contrive. Looking down the bore you will discern a faint concentric series of shaded donuts. If the barrel is bent, you will notice that at some indefinable point a couple of adjacent donuts, maybe 3, that will not appear to be concentric. It then becomes obvious which way you press the barrel to make the donuts appear as concentric as possible. I occasionally straighten a barrel here in my shop, in a cheap hydraulic bearing press, rotate the barrel high point up under the ram, vee blocks spaced not exactly even on tapered barrels(the thin side will bend easier than the thick side, so you estimate where to support outboard of the bend). Then apply pressure on the ram gingerly, checking the donut picture as you proceed, relaxing pressure frequently and checking the donut picture. Naturally, you will need to go past center with better steels like 4140, 4130. You have probably gathered by now that it is more art than science. Try not to get too rowdy with it, if you go too far, when you rotate it back and work it the second time, thar be dragons and once in a while it will start to "oil can", pretty much ruining the barrel without heat treating ability.
I just shuddered at some of the suggestions on a thread on here the other day for bending a shotgun barrel. They can be bent to 'shoot to the bead' but I'm not wild about banging them on trees and tires. 'Nuff said.

More useless pointers.... since you have a lot of time on your hands, why don't you do a little reading on LE accuracy, available everywhere on the net. A couple years ago I got a LE sporter that was a true 4 moa rifle, although in beautiful condition. I read the articles, some from Cousin Oz, Cousin Canuck, and some from Olde England. They go into excruciating detail, but they all agreed on a few points, so I glass bedded the "draws", a good portion of the chamber, smoothed the trigger, bingo, a 1.5 moa rifle with a Mark VII duplication hand load. Also, in honesty, there is no way in hell I can shoot 1.5 moa with irons, I bought an adapter scope mount and put an old 4x Weaver on the rifle. So, how much of the improvement was scope or bedding, who knows?

flintlocke;
Top of the morning to you sir, I see your light is on and hope it's not as cold down there as it seems to want to be here and that all in your world are well.

Thanks for taking the time to articulate your method as it sounds to me like a more scientific approach!

I'll add a hearty Amen to your suggestion it's more of an art than science and note that many of my repair techniques are and were like me, farm raised and bred so there is that. My late father used to say to me, "Well it's not working the way it is Dwayne, so why don't you see if you can fix it? It won't get worse."

Now truly sometimes we did make it worse, but not that often actually as there just wasn't the funding for a new one, so we carefully figured out how to resurrect the broken tool, you know?

We've played with a few LE that shot so well I hesitate to speak of it for fear folks doubt my veracity more than usual!

One No 4 Mk I that we played with the bedding on, did an adapter thing for the trigger and then epoxied a scope mount on actually shot .308" bullets into 1" for 3 shots.

Some of the barrels were not that bad is all I can say, based upon a lifetime of shooting and fooling with the LE and Enfield rifles.

Anyways, thanks again for your method, a press setup on some blocks would be a much more controlled environment for sure.

All the best to you this weekend.

Dwayne

I realize that this is the campfire, but I would ask PSE if he feels the effort is worth it. My take on it is that it is not, so he is going to have to chime in here. Does he think that it is worth it to proceed?

Bending the barrel is a real crapshoot. It has to be done such that the sights line up. Second, the accuracy is unlikely to improve.

Given its age and condition, I would expend my energy rowards a replacement rifle, or if this rifle has a special significance, replace tbe barrel with a new one.

I will chime in here and say that the main reason for straightening the barrel was hopefully to gain a bit of accuracy after the attempt. Flintlocke has kind of put the fear into me that I could overdo it and really wreck the barrel and even if successful, the accuracy gain would not be a given.

I don't have equipment like a hydraulic press so it would be bent by me totally using muscle strength and eyeball. I don't feel THAT confident (with my skills) doing that, so I won't.

It really bothered the hell out of me before, when I was using the irons and would constantly be aware of the front sight drifted over to the far right, but after I scoped it - I now don't notice the front sight at all, obviously.

I own much better rifles capable of way better accuracy but have taken the sporterized LE out to hunt deer and boar twice
and it performed well. (Both ranges were short <100 yds) Hunting with it was more of a sentimental thing than practical as it used to belong to my father.

So to answer Steve's question - I will not torture it and just enjoy it, as is. Thanks to all for your advice and comments.
It's appreciated.

Cut rifled a bunch of barrels in years past, some holes weren't straight after drilling an reaming, we used a small insert button made of steel, brass or aluminum that had a little shank turned on it about 1/4" that fit snug into the bore, a 1/16 hole through the center. look through the aperture towards a good light source an you will see concentric rings in the barrel, if its bent the rings won't be concentric and you can see where the bend is an adjust accordingly. We used an arbor press to make adjustments...I've used this method to straighten lots of barrels, optically the smaller the hole in the button the closer you can get to perfectly straight.
your mileage may vary, but that a simple way to check for a bend