I know you 'know your stuff' but my concerns would be there is no support across the rear of the action - NO charger bridge and NO rear sight.

This will allow a lot of flex and will upset how the various components interact.

This from Peter Laidler ............................

This setup is no different than that of the Custom or Supreme No4 rifles supplied by Parker Hale back in the 60's. I see no reason to fret over something that will never come to light Alan. 

To get to the point that Mr. Laidler is describing, the rifle would had to have been consistently used day in and day out for years. I made an exacting clone of a Supreme No4 based off of a Maltby action. I have currently put 255 rounds down range with it and to date, it is still putting everything into the X ring at 100 yards. My dad's Custom No4 that he purchased new in 1966 from the Rod and Gun Club in New Ulm is still capable of MOA groups and recently as three weeks ago, dropped a 8x8 Mule Deer according to my sister. My point here being that, if Parker Hale Ltd was able to hack off the charging bridge and rear sight axis pins of No4Mk1 action bodies, cut the barrels down to 22 inches, fit it with basically a cutdown forend, make their own custom side mounted scope assembly and then call it good, what's there to worry about. The No4Mk2 Maltby with a M47C stamped barrel... 

The No1Mk111/* action bodies are devoid of a rear sight altogether and have less metal enveloping the areas around the locking lugs and yet no one gives it a single thought about the reciever spreading. Parker Hale made a Custom No1 by simply removing the charging bridge and bolting a scope mount to it. Are the No1 action bodies inherently stronger than the No4 action bodies?

I thought about making a full solid Finite Element Model of the No. 4 action and bolt, apply the 18.5 tsi pressure to the bolt face and see what the stresses and deflections are in the action body and bolt.  I was primarily thinking of doing this to see what the displacement of the bolt is relative to the back of the barrel (headspace). Maybe when I retire…

That'd be a great project and I'd be very interested to see the results - hopefully you'll be retiring very soon !!

I'm using the stockset made for Herter's Sporting Goods. The reciever has been bedded to the forestock and the barrel will be fully floated...

I'm curious.

How many reports are there of No1 rifles suffering from"Receiver Spreading?

Now, there are three dimensional deflections/strains to a uniaxial load, called “poisson’s effect” which is perpendicular to the applied load.  And since the locking lugs are forward of the rear of the action where backsight lugs are located and the load is compressive behind the locking lugs, the poisson’s effect would cause a increase in sectional dimensions at the backsight lugs.  Most common construction materials have a poisson’s ratio around .2 to .3, meaning the transverse elongation is approx .3 times the axial elongation (for steel).  But, I suspect the elongation in the action body from compression forces of firing a cartridge is pretty darn small…it is made of steel after all, not rubber.  Maybe it spreads by .002 to .003 inches (ish).  And what effect does that have?  It is certainly an elastic deformation, meaning it returns to its original dimensions when the load is removed. 

I can see the potential of metal fatigue and failure to the right side of the reciever where the long locking lug contacts if a constant and repeated load is applied in an almost non-stop circumstance. I cannot see it spreading outwards however...

The bolt is probably more susceptible to fatigue from tension stresses at the very tight (nearly zero) transition radius where the short lug meets the bolt body due to bending of that lug.  That very tight radius causes a high localized stress concentration. That’s one of the areas I wants to model with a very fine mesh to capture the peak stress.  

Fatigue life is an exponential function of the localized stress level.  Double the stress and the life (number of load cycles to initiate a fatigue crack) goes down by several orders of magnitude.  This is one reason I don’t like pushing loads up to near max with this action, occasionally, with a limited number of rounds that’s fine, but not for long term use. 

What Laidler describes to the best of his abilities would/could happen with or without the charging bridge and back sight assembly...

Yeah, stay away from near max loads.  Fine if your shoot a few rounds a year, but devastating if you shoot 1500+ rounds a year like I do.  That’s why I got a few No. 4 rifles, try and spread out the accumulation of fatigue damage and barrel erosion. 

When I found this barrel for sale, I knew the rifling would be near perfect which it is. It is what is attached to the barrel that is sickening.  The previous owner cut the reciever in half. The reciever still has the original scope pad attached and the barrel is stamped M/47C. The reciever has the H&H "S" stamp as well.

I had to purchase this barrel for the simple reason that it is a legitimate T rifle barrel and needs to be functional once more...

"Parting it out"

The receiver is the "Recordable part" so they destroy it to sell the barrel which is not.

Terrible shame.

The LB reciever I am using was almost cut in half for the same reasons. I paid the guy an extra 50 bucks to not destroy the reciever...

Not to interrupt but was that in New Ulm MN

 Geeze, it does seem sad to think ruthless peopl actually are willing to destroy history for a few bucks. I saw a stripped T action sell up here last year for $750

 But on a lighter note, Like classic GTO`s and Z28`s, there`s probably more T rifles on planet earth now than were ever originally made!

Don't even dream of looking on E-bay then!

Pages & pages of obviously torn down rifles stripped for parts!

Nue Ulm Germany where I was born. Army Brat... 

I was going to head out of town Saturday and Sunday to test fire this rifle but forgot that I will be watching a Non Athletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks event from turn 4 for the next three days so I will have to wait until the following weekend...