SMLE Production/Manufacture.

[17107BM]

Hello all.

After giving the SMLE a good cleaning after a day out. It set me thinking as to whether there could be any footage of film on the manufacture of these rifles or there variants.

I have done some searching, but not really what I'm looking for.

Any Pals found any interesting production footage?

Both machining and assembly would be very welcome.

Cheers all.

[Beerhunter]

I'd start here

[MikB]

I've sometimes wondered how the rifling was done. Singlepoint tools with a master spiral seems very long-winded, the barrels don't look button-rifled, and hammer-forming wasn't yet developed. I'd suspect broaching was the quickest and most reliable method available at the time, and I'm sure I've seen photos of light artillery barrels being broach-rifled.

Anyone have any confirmation or disproof?

Regards,

MikB

[JMB1943]

Regarding manufacture of the barrels, I have paraphrased the relevant section from Reynolds book on the LE.

"After forging, the barrel was turned to about the proper shape, then drilled out. The drilling was carried out as a single operation, straight-through from end to end. The bits and reamers did not rotate, but the barrel was revolved about them at the desired speed. The drilling machine had a moving slide onto which were fixed the drilling tools; these tools were gradually forced through the forging by the movement of the slide, and a lubricant was pumped through the bits for cooling and to wash out the metal cuttings. Rifling grooves were cut one at a time; a cut of 0.003" was made successively on each of the 5 grooves. Several cuts were required, in series of 5, to finish the rifling. Movement of the cutting tool through the barrel gave the required degree of spiral."

Single-point tools/button-rifling/drop-hammering/broaching are not mentioned explicitly, but you may be able to infer from the description what methodology was in play.

Regards,

JMB

[17107BM]

Very interesting posts.

Thank you. I wonder if any film was made in other countries producing rifles during the War?

Obviously this kind of manufacturing is a subject of it's own.

Look forward to more.

Cheers all.

G.T.K.

[MikB]

Regarding manufacture of the barrels, I have paraphrased the relevant section from Reynolds book on the LE.

"After forging, the barrel was turned to about the proper shape, then drilled out. The drilling was carried out as a single operation, straight-through from end to end. The bits and reamers did not rotate, but the barrel was revolved about them at the desired speed. The drilling machine had a moving slide onto which were fixed the drilling tools; these tools were gradually forced through the forging by the movement of the slide, and a lubricant was pumped through the bits for cooling and to wash out the metal cuttings. Rifling grooves were cut one at a time; a cut of 0.003" was made successively on each of the 5 grooves. Several cuts were required, in series of 5, to finish the rifling. Movement of the cutting tool through the barrel gave the required degree of spiral."

Single-point tools/button-rifling/drop-hammering/broaching are not mentioned explicitly, but you may be able to infer from the description what methodology was in play.

Regards,

JMB

Thanks for that. It is after all single-point cut rifling - I'm now wondering how they advanced the tool after each set of passes!

The drillbit was never much of a question as gundrills with pumped-through coolant are now a standard engineering tool for drilling holes many diameters deep.

Regards,

MikB

[gew98]

Oddly enough if you look through the book "Backbone of the Wehrmacht" The Author R. Law published a good many pictures of the manufacture process of the german rifles to include some excellent pictures of the tooling used to cut rifling. I recall one picture where a german tech was sharpening the cutter that cut the rifling...and it appeared to be indexible. No doubt it was old hat tech in the great war . I would gather most of the machining processes to make rifle barrels varied little between the nations industries then.