Here is a wordy description of a hillbilly gunsmith special that gives me Fallout vibes (Its actually not that terrible).

Over a decade ago I had a SMLE fall into my lap and many of us do (especially up here in Canada). It came from my father's hunting buddy. Unfortunately, the barrel was a sewer pipe, and I understood why he wanted it gone the Weaver TO-1 rail was notably also mounted off square by about 10 degrees. Naturally it being sporterized and being a milsurp purist it was relegated to the dark corners of the safe. Years go by, and some time spent on Old YouTube and Forums I came across a number of "creations" built on the venerable SMLE action. On that stood out was the 22 Hornet. That idea floated around in my head for years. Then I also came into a CIL 125, a Canadian store brand similar to Sear although they were quite nice as you would expect from a Anschutz product. After a quick cleaning I found that the bore was perfect.

So now I have parts and a dream, I needed proper tools for plumbing a barrel and chambeing the rifle. So fate would have it that another enthusiast and I met at a gunshow. Being spring we got to talking about varmint rifles and shooting colony rodents. I told him about an idea I had. Just my luck, he has a lathe, a 22 - KHornet reamer and was willing to help me out. He had built two of these rifles before so it was pretty straight forward for him.

The rifles he has built have shot exceptionally well given what the rifle is and the components used in his reloads. A load consisting of a 45gr swaged bullet with jackets made from spent 22LR casings, ontop of a charge of a very sketchy blend of powder with equal density to achieve desired accuracy (don't do this please) all rolled up into a ancient Dominion case fire formed to the K-Hornet chamber and a small pistol primer.
The group I fired off the bench behind his shop measured just under a 1" at 100 yards. I was honestly shocked.

How do you get a barrel with a far smaller OD than the ID of the receiver? You bore out the barrel and treat the chamber of the original barrel as the receiver. The .303 barrel was cut to a stub, bored, threaded to mate with the Anschutz barrel and then reamed from 22 LR to the K-Hornet. Then the pair are installed and headspaced. A extractor groove is cut. The original extractor was removed and a piece of a butched Remington 870 action bar was shaped to match one off of his other rifles.

Though the iron sight dovetail arent exactly at 12 o'clock I couldnt complain. I installed the CIL iron sights to fireform while I thought over how I would correct the scope rail. But that was satisfactory either, the front sight was far too short and shot roughly 3' high at 100 yards. So I fit a much taller blade, it shot much closer, but about 6" low. That was much more manageable. So now the rear leaf sight was tapped for a elevation screw. My other buddy had extra screws and a tap. So I sent it off with him and upon its return, he had bedded and aligned the the scope rail without my mentioning. One of the screw holes that used as a indexing pin, then the rail was redrilled.

So finally I get to work on my rifle myself. Wanting to match the wood of the stock EAL sporter stock, I dug through a bucket of forends my dad had is his garage. The only walnut one of the bunch. Upon further inspection I noticed it was bedded with copper shims and screws where it contacts the mag release portion of the action. I then pressure bedded the forend with Devcon. The magazine spring and follower were removed to be used as a brass catcher, seeing that the Hornet is much smaller in diameter and length than a .303 British it does not eject. Handy if you reload, especially if you are loading for a wildcat with a hard to find parent case.

Now other than a buttpad, it's ready to take to the dog town. I will be making some cosmetic adjustments to the forend and cold blue the worn finish on the barrel. Lastly I will make a cheek riser, I'll be cloning that off of a No4Mk1T sniper rifle.

Thanks for reading fellas, if you have any questions ask away.

Winter Rust 2024: An Eccentric Enfield (22 K-Hornet)