Enfield DP Barreled Receiver for Repair/Conversion to .303 British, .22LR, etc.

These No1MkIII barreled actions were taken from Indian Ishapore Drill Purpose rifles in very nice shape, with most of their bluing or arsenal black paint intact. To my surprise, the bores are bright with sharp lands, better than many of the normal service rifles I’ve examined over the years.  Though these DP rifles have the typical ¼” hole drilled through the receiver and barrel breech, they are repairable/rebuildable and so require an FFL to transfer.

In the past, I have plugged and welded the holes in these DP barreled receivers and reamed the chambers to shoot .303 British again. (I wrote about this in the 2021 DIY special issue of GUNS Magazine.) There are alternative methods, such as removing the barrel first and repairing barrel and receiver separately. Some people have repaired the chambers of these barrels and mated them with the un-demilled receivers offered elsewhere on this site.

Use good judgment to evaluate the quality of your specific repair technique in regards to the intended use.  Obviously, repairing these to shoot blanks is a fairly low bar to reach because there’s little case expansion to mechanically bind the fired blank case to a defect (like a hole) in the chamber wall. A simple bead of weld to cosmetically cover the hole in the receiver and provide a gas seal can be fully adequate for low pressure blanks. 

The No1MkIII Enfield is also ideally suited to conversion to .22LR by drilling out the bore to install a common .22 caliber sleeve, and modifying the bolt head to work with rimfire.  It is for that purpose that I obtained these barreled receivers.  It’s a nice DIY project.  Converting this barreled action to .22LR, would allow you to drop it into another DP or standard rifle for inexpensive shooting, without destroying the historical integrity of the original rifle.

Below are some photographs that show how I did my chamber repairs that I offer for information purposes only. There are several ways to approach a repair like this. Since there’s no way I can judge your lever of basic gunsmithing knowledge and skill, and cannot speculate on the manner you will employ the “repaired” firearm, I cannot, and will not, take responsibility for the success of your repair and any unsafe situations that might arise should it prove inadequate, including those leading to destruction of property, or loss of life or limb. Any gunsmithing projects you employ these barreled receivers for, you do at you own risk. If you aren’t sure you can do this type of work, my advice to anyone would be, “Don’t do it until you are sure you can.” As such, buyers of these barreled receivers must sign a “hold-harmless” agreement as a condition sale.

With that warning and legal disclaimer behind us, be thoughtful and careful in your work and have fun.  These barreled receivers are sold individually and the item pictured is the specific item you will receive. These are all FFL items and can only ship to a licensed dealer.  We cannot ship to California C&R FFL holders. 

01 Locating the plug by scribing the side of an empty cartridge case.

02 Shaping the end of the chamber plug to match the contour of the cartridge case in the scribed circle.

03 I cut off the shaped plug with a hack saw to about half the thickness of the barrel breech wall because I intended to secure it permanently in place by filling in behind the plug with weld bead.

04 One plug fitted and left slightly high inside the chamber for reaming.  In a blanks-only gun, I would have just fitted it as close to the inside surface of the chamber as possible without encroaching into it.  Unlike standard ammunition, blank cases expand very little during firing and generally won’t hang up on a small chamber defect.

05 Checking the face contour of the second plug compared to the chamber contour.

06 One plug installed and ready to weld permanently in. Note how I relieved the edges of the hole so I could get the welder down into the bottom of the hole to insure a good melt between the back of the plug and the sides of the hole. I could have dismounted the barrel and fixed it separately so the barrel and receiver could be separated, or the barrel used on another receiver.

07  Gravity held the plug in place during welding. Here, the plug is backed up with an aluminum dummy round which acts as a heat sink and holds the plug at the right depth.  Because I wanted the plug to be a little proud in the chamber for reaming, you will notice the dummy round is not fully chambered.  For a blank-only gun, I would have chambered it fully so the no part of the plug would protrude into the chamber.

08 All ready to weld the plug in.

09 A few seconds of welding.

10 A nice deep weld bead.

11 The ground and polished weld.