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Showing results for tags 'Headspace'.
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Hi All, Warning: I'm very new to Brens. I'd noticed the brass looked elongated above the rim after firing in my Inglis MKI. I bought myself a gauge to measure the location of the shoulder of a fired case. It measures .025" over the high limit! Now I'll look through my barrels and see if I can find something with a shorter chamber using a headspace plug gauge. That is one place to look as I've only used 1 barrel. Then there is the locking piece. Mine looks factory (81 years old). Marked JI (I assume John Inglis), the letters "RD" and the numbers 3056. My luck is the pickings for replacements are getting slim. Even then if I've a 1X size and go to 3X size it will only drop the headspace 0.008". Better but still seems huge if the shoulder is moving .025". Barrel locking nut seems to snug on the barrel. Bolt looks good but I could dig out another and see if that works. All else fails I could try to make my own locking piece. With that said, anyone know the hardness of that part? OTOH, I've only had one case separation and the gun spit out the casing and kept running. Maybe in the future with reload, just size pushing the shoulder back about .004" and I see if the brass survives. Any thoughts or things I've missed, help would be appreciated from those that know. Thanks all, Grasshopper
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I know there have been similar posts on this topic (sort of). I just can't find the answers to my specific questions. I also know that Doug Richardson has headspace guage set for Thompsons. I guess my question really is: how was barreling done at a factory level during WW2, and was headspacing even checked? Did they have some kind of special fixture for installing barrels quickly? I mean, I can't imagine they would have to bolt a wrench to a barrel and then have to un-bolt it for each gun. Also, as to headspace, was it even checked, or since everything was supposed to be within spec; did they just test fire each Thompson and ship it out? Is there any other method nowadays to make sure everything is good? Like simple function test with dummy rounds, and test firing after? I know you need to be a bit more careful when using a non-original barrel. I'm trying to learn all I can about Thompsons. Thanks in advance. Andrew