The Savage Enfield Project Part 1

Another month, another project. This one belongs to my cousin. He put this together from parts and asked me to refinish most of the metal pieces. I will attempt to mimic the original military finish.

For those not aware, Savage Arms was contracted to produce the No.4 MkI* Enfield rifle for the United Kingdom.


Here is what the rifle looked like before I started.

The first step is usually disassembly:

There are several screws that will need to be restored before bluing

The rust and pitting under the stock

I had to order this special tool to disassemble the bolt

The tool arrived and worked as advertised....

Once everything was apart, I had to figure out what level of polish to sand the metal to.
I looked online and found some near mint condition Savage made Enfields. As you can see it is a matte finish, almost sand blasted. I think I will use the wire wheel to burnish the metal, then maybe blend and shine a bit with some Scotchbrite pads.

Here are the major parts after cleaning them up with the wire wheel

Here are the screws, you want to be careful not to over polish parts for military guns like this, they were never finished like commercial firearms.

A before and after comparison

Stay tuned for part 2